"The Quincunx" is an epic Dickensian-like mystery novel set in 19th century England, and concerns the varying fortunes of young John Huffam and his mother. A thrilling complex plot is made more intriguing by the unreliable narrator of the book - how much can we believe of what he says? First published in 1989, "The Quincunx" was a surprise bestseller and began a trend for pastiche Victorian novels. It remains one of the best.

The Quincunx : The Inheritance of John Huffam

Literature & Fiction

PALLISER, Charles

Contemporary

Penguin Group(CA)

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Science & Math

Technology

Franklin Classics

This meditation on the Victorian novel and sprawling epic tale of a man's quest for his identity follows John as he journeys to the heart of the Quincunx to reveal his elusive past

The Quincunx

British & Irish

Ballantine Books

As the twentieth century ends, David, collecting women as conquests and discarding them, meets the unstable and irresistable Lucy and learns the power and peril of intimacy

The Sensationist

At once a hypnotic murder mystery, scathing literary parody, soap opera, and brilliant pastiche, Betrayals is an astonishing virtuouso performance by a modern master of literary gamesmanship in the tradition of Vladimir Nabokov and John Barth. The novel unforlds in a series of seemingly unrelated narratives, each written in a different style -- indeed, in a different genre. There is an obituary for a Scottish scientist and Nobel Prize winner, written by a colleague who clearly relishes his death. Early in the century, a train in the Scottish Highlands heads down the wrong track during a winter snowstorm, and the passengers are forced to abandon the train, resulting in the death -- or is it murder? -- of one of them. An inane publisher's reader summarizes the plot of a tacky hospital romance novel, which ends in a gory murder all too reminiscent of Jack the Ripper. Even a report on a contemporary academic controversy explodes into a scandal of plagiarism, shattered reputations, paranoia, and suicide -- or is it murder made to look as such? As Palliser deftly teases out each new situation, it becomes clear that they are all variations on a single outrageous theme: a distinguished figure in some intellectual pursuit -- science, literature, academia -- becomes obsessed with the success of a rival and schemes his demise, only to botch the job out of sheer monomania. Like the scorpion that stings itself to death, each plotter becomes a victim of his own plot; each betrayer changes places with the betrayed in an intricate dance of deception, revenge, and revelation. A challenging, engrossing, utterly original work of art, Betrayals is also pure joy to read -- a book that will make you laugh out loud, turn pages madly in pursuit of the next plot twist, and above all, marvel at the supreme ingenuity of a fictional puzzle in which the unlikeliest pieces fit together perfectly.

Betrayals

An extraordinary modern novel in the Victorian tradition, Charles Palliser has created something extraordinary—a plot within a plot within a plot of family secrets, mysterious clues, low-born birth, high-reaching immorality, and, always, always the fog-enshrouded, enigmatic character of 19th century—London itself. “So compulsively absorbing that reality disappears . . . One is swept along by those enduring emotions that defy modern art and a random universe: hunger for revenge, longing for justice and the fantasy secretly entertained by most people that the bad will be punished and the good rewarded.”—The New York Times “A virtuoso achievement . . . It is an epic, a tour de force, a staggeringly complex and tantalizingly layered tale that will keep readers engrossed in days. . . . The Quincunx will not disappoint you. It is, quite simply, superb.”—Chicago Sun-Times “A bold and vivid tale that invites the reader to get lost in the intoxicating rhythms of another world. And the invitation is irresistible.”—San Francisco Chronicle “A remarkable book . . . In mood, color, atmosphere and characters, this is Charles Dickens reincarnated . . . It is an immersing experience.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “To read the first pages is to be trapped for seven-hundred odd more: you cannot stop turning them.”—The New Yorker “Few books, at most a dozen or two in a lifetime, affect us this way. . . . For sheer intricacy and ingenuity, for skill and clarity of storytelling, it is the kind of book readers wait for, a book to get lost in.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Random House Publishing Group

Beginning a tormented search for anonymous sensual pleasure, David, a man obsessed with women, pursues a trail of aimless conquest and the intimacy of strangers. By the author of The Quincunx. Reprint.

A riveting historical murder-mystery by the bestselling author of The Quincunx. There are three separate tales interwoven in this novel-three tales that could be called ghost stories, for their mysteries can never be resolved, the victims and the perpetrators never laid to rest. Dr. Courtine, an unworldly academic, is invited to spend the days before Christmas with an old friend. Twenty years have passed since Courtine and Austin last met, and the invitation to Austin's home in the cathedral close of Thurchester is a welcome one. When Courtine arrives, Austin tells him a tale of deadly rivalry and murder two centuries old. The mystery captures Courtine's donnish imagination, as it is intended to do. Courtine also plans to pursue his research into another unresolved and older mystery in the labyrinthine cathedral library. If he can track down an elusive eleventh-century manuscript, he hopes to dispose of a deadly rival of his own. Doubly distracted, Courtine becomes unwittingly enmeshed in the sequence of terrible events that follows his arrival, and he becomes witness to a murder that seems never to have been committed.

The Unburied

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Our Review\nA Historical Murder Mystery of the Highest Order\nIn 1990, Charles Palliser made a spectacular debut with , a huge, densely plotted book that illuminates, in extraordinary detail, virtually every level of English society in the early 19th century. In his fourth novel, The Unburied, Palliser turns to the late Victorian era to give us an equally authoritative reconstruction of the past and a tightly compressed narrative filled with treachery, drama, and interconnected mysteries.\nThe novel opens with a brief preface in which Philip Barthram, editor of the manuscript we're about to read, travels to Geneva for an enigmatic encounter with an old, dying woman. At the end of this encounter -- which makes numerous references to events and people we know nothing about -- the narrative shifts abruptly, taking us into "The Courtine Account," a memoir written by Cambridge historian Edward Courtine. The memoir recounts Courtine's 1881 visit to the cathedral town of Thurchester, site of the mysteries that will gradually dominate the novel.\nOstensibly, Courtine has come to Thurchester to visit his former college roommate, Austin Fickling. Courtine and Austin parted bitterly 20 years before and hope to effect a belated reconciliation. Courtine also hopes to unearth a manuscript -- rumored to reside in the Thurchester library -- that will shed new light on his academic specialty, the reign of King Alfred, medieval ruler of Wessex. As he attempts to follow both his personal and professional agendas, Edward finds himself embroiled in a pair of unresolved mysteries. One concerns the 200-year-old murders of William Burgoyne and Launcelot Freeth, whose violent deaths continue to generate controversy and speculation. The other concerns the brutal killing of a local banker, a killing that takes place -- or appears to take place -- just minutes after Courtine and Austin have visited the banker's home.\nAs the novel progresses, the details of the two crimes echo each other with an eerie frequency. With unobtrusive skill, Palliser leads us through a cumulatively fascinating labyrinth composed of fact, rumor, legend, and supposition. Within this labyrinth, objective "truth" proves to be an illusive, perhaps unattainable goal. But Courtine, a historian who believes in the power of the imagination, continues to pursue that goal. In the course of his pursuit, which is never wholly successful, he finds himself forced to reassess the central elements of his his embattled relationship with Austin Fickling, the painful failure of his marriage, two decades before, and the unperceived weaknesses of his own character.\nAdmirers of Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, John Fowles, and Umberto Eco should take this novel to their hearts. The Unburied is exciting, audacious, mysterious, moving, and intellectually challenging, all at once. Like The Quincunx, it speaks clearly and directly to the modern sensibility and leaves a lingering aftertaste behind.\n--Bill Sheehan\nBill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has recently been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

One of the Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly “Endlessly fascinating…one of the strongest novels of the year. ” - School Library Journal “Readers will have as much grisly fun just sorting out the facts as they will solving the mysteries.” -The Daily Beast A vertiginous gothic masterpiece from the best-selling author of The Quincunx. Charles Palliser’s work has been hailed as “so compulsively absorbing that reality disappears” (New York Times). Since his extraordinary debut, The Quincunx, his works have sold over one million copies worldwide. With his new novel, Rustication, he returns to the town of Thurchester, which he evoked so hauntingly in The Unburied. It is winter 1863, and Richard Shenstone, aged seventeen, has been sent down―“rusticated”―from Cambridge under a cloud of suspicion. Addicted to opium and tormented by sexual desire, he finds temporary refuge in a dilapidated old mansion on the southern English coast inhabited by his newly impoverished mother and his sister, Effie. Soon, graphic and threatening letters begin to circulate among his neighbors, and Richard finds himself the leading suspect in a series of crimes and misdemeanors ranging from vivisection to murder.
Atmospheric, lurid, and brilliantly executed, Rustication confirms Palliser’s reputation as “our leading contemporary Victorian novelist” (Guardian).

Rustication: A Novel

Literary

W.W.Norton&Company

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PALLISER, Charles. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by PALLISER, Charles

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PALLISER, Charles. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Quincunx : The Inheritance of John Huffam

Practical Concrete-Block Making: A Simple Practical Treatise for the Workman Explaining the Selection of the Materials and the Making of Substantial ... Making Molds and Remarks On How to Obtain T

The Quincunx

The Sensationist

Betrayals

The Quincunx

The Sensationist

The Unburied

The Unburied

Rustication: A Novel