The Modern Fairies
by Clare Pollard
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Pub Date Jun 13 2024 | Archive Date Oct 08 2024
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Description
'Elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin - the book I really really needed' SARAH PERRY, author of The Essex Serpent
'The sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence ... This memorable novel reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives, then and now' THE NEW YORK TIMES
Why don't they tell you it is the beautiful princess who becomes the evil queen; that they are just the same person at different points in their story?
Versailles, 1682: a city of the rich, a living fairy-tale, Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of opulence, beauty, and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society, and you'll find a dark undercurrent of sexual intrigue and vicious gossip. Nobody is safe here - no matter how highly born they are.
No one knows this better than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week, a rogue group of intellectuals gather at her Parisian home to debate, flirt and perform Contes de Fées - fairy tales - that challenge the status quo, at a salon that will change the course of literature forever. But while they weave tales of glass slippers, enchanted beasts and long-haired princesses, a wolf is lurking, who threatens to destroy the members of the salon one by one.
Brilliant and bawdy, romantic and provocative, The Modern Fairies is a dazzling novel inspired by real events, about the delights and dangers of storytelling in dark times.
'Funny, filthy, dancingly clever: a delectable confection of many-layered pleasures. A story of stories, storytellers, and the lurking dangers of fairytales. It reminded me of Jeanette Winterson's The Passion, and I gobbled it all up' JOANNA QUINN, author of The Whalebone Theatre
'Original, fantastical, historical, and unputdownable' KAREN JOY FOWLER, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
'Pollard's future, as a novelist, is very bright indeed' THE I, praise for Delphi
Advance Praise
‘Elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin – the book I really really needed’ Sarah Perry, author of THE ESSEX SERPENT
‘Lush and gossipy, rich and wonderfully indulgent. The Modern Fairies is wickedly playful yet lingers, with emotional truth, long after reading. A fest of a novel. I dare you to read it!’ Molly Aitken, author of THE ISLAND CHILD
‘A novel both aching and cruel, sumptuous and tender, Pollard’s beautiful writing leads us along winding pathways. Through its prickling branches to exquisite clearings of hope, this book consumed me.’ Katie Hale, author of MY NAME IS MONSTER
‘Original, fantastical, historical, and unputdownable’
Karen Joy Fowler, Booker shortlisted author of WE ARE ALL BESIDE OURSELVES
‘Funny, filthy, dancingly clever ... A delectable confection of many-layered pleasures. A story of stories, storytellers, and the lurking dangers of fairytales, set against the lavish decadence of 1600s Versailles. I gobbled it all up’
Joanna Quinn, author of THE WHALEBONE THEATRE
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780241672457 |
| PRICE | £18.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 256 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Mary H, Reviewer
This is a novel of the goings on at the salon of Marie where fairy tales are told, but they are set against a wider background involving the Sun King's Court as well as Paris, where the salon is held.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that this novel contained so much colourful description and little known facts, such as the fact that nostalgia is a Greek word meaning the ache from an old wound. The author tells the stories current at Versailles with equal enthusiasm and I felt as if I was actually there, in Versailles, which is what a novel is meant to do, transport one to a place of their imagination as if it is real. Needless to say that I enjoyed the book and would highly recommend it.
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