Edward Carey. (2018). Little: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Edward Carey. 2018. Little: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Edward Carey, Little: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2018.

Edward Carey. Little: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2018.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{E36069BF-E1EC-4B3B-97BD-3FCE5A3A4FF3}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{E36069BF-E1EC-4B3B-97BD-3FCE5A3A4FF3}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/E36/069/BF/{E36069BF-E1EC-4B3B-97BD-3FCE5A3A4FF3}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/E36/069/BF/{E36069BF-E1EC-4B3B-97BD-3FCE5A3A4FF3}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780525534341
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B079WMZHKD
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780525534341
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Edward Carey

title

Little

dateAdded

2018-10-18T18:35:00-04:00

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=3844786
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Little A Novel

crossRefId

3844786

subtitle

A Novel

id

e36069bf-e1ec-4b3b-97bd-3fce5a3a4ff3

starRating

3.9

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: Little_9780525534341_3844786
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 70145154
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780525534341
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 10/23/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=e36069bf-e1ec-4b3b-97bd-3fce5a3a4ff3&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: Little_3844786
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B079WMZHKD
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 10/23/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=e36069bf-e1ec-4b3b-97bd-3fce5a3a4ff3&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: Little_9780525534341_3844786
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780525534341
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 10/23/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=e36069bf-e1ec-4b3b-97bd-3fce5a3a4ff3&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: Victorian
2. • value: illustrations
3. • value: family
4. • value: relationships
5. • value: goth
6. • value: guillotine
7. • value: Friendship
8. • value: literary fiction
9. • value: Historical
10. • value: romance
11. • value: book club
12. • value: Fiction
13. • value: philosophy
14. • value: novels
15. • value: little
16. • value: Gothic
17. • value: love
18. • value: Coming of age
19. • value: Death
20. • value: Crossover
21. • value: Switzerland
22. • value: german
23. • value: Historical Fiction
24. • value: body
25. • value: France
26. • value: French Revolution
27. • value: bastille
28. • value: grief
29. • value: Medical
30. • value: drawings
31. • value: Alternate History
32. • value: oddities
33. • value: Literary
34. • value: British fiction
35. • value: book club recommendations
36. • value: British authors
37. • value: Penny Dreadful
38. • value: Dickensian
39. • value: historical fiction novels
40. • value: historical fiction books
41. • value: berne
42. • value: quirky fiction
43. • value: Edward Carey

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Carey, Edward
   • name: Edward Carey

imprint

Riverhead Books

publishDate

2018-10-23T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

Little

fullDescription

LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE
"An amazing achievement. . . A compulsively readable novel, so canny and weird and surfeited with the reality of human capacity and ingenuity that I am stymied for comparison. Dickens and David Lynch? Defoe meets Margaret Atwood? Judge for yourself." —Gregory Maguire, New York Times-bestselling author of Wicked
The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud.
In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do.
In the tradition of Gregory Maguire's Wicked and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Edward Carey's Little is a darkly endearing cavalcade of a novel—a story of art, class, determination, and how we hold on to what we love.

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from August 20, 2018
     Plunging into the macabre chaos of 18th-century Europe in this exquisite novel, Carey (Alva & Irva) conjures the life of the girl who would become Madame Tussaud. Orphaned at seven, “Little” Anne Marie Grosholz finds herself in servitude to Doctor Curtius, an emaciated recluse who fashions body parts from wax for medical research. He teaches the clever Marie his trade—which she quickly learns, as she’d already developed an early, acute awareness of physiognomy owing to her gargantuan nose and protruding chin. Curtius soon becomes renowned for his wax portrait heads, but when he and Marie must flee to Paris to avoid their creditors, finding lodgings with a tailor’s widow and her son Edmond, Marie is banished to the kitchen by Edmond’s jealous mother. Marie has no choice but to find allies outside the widow’s household, and after a surprise royal visit to Curtius’s workshop, she manages to get herself invited to Versailles to tutor King Louis XVI’s sister Elizabeth. But it is 1780, and only a few years later the monarchy is overcome by the Revolution. Marie manages to make it home, but the Paris she knows implodes, and her royal associations land her in trouble. There is nothing ordinary about this book, in which everything animate and inanimate lives, breathes, and remembers. Carey, with sumptuous turns of phrase, fashions a fantastical world that churns with vitality, especially his “Little,” a female Candide at once surreal and full of heart.

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     August 15, 2018
     This historical novel explores Revolutionary Paris through the fictionalized eyes of the orphan who grew up to become Madame Tussaud.Born in a little Alsatian village in 1761, Anne Marie Grosholtz--called Marie--inherits her mother's large Roman nose, her father's large, upturned chin, and little else. Marie's widowed mother dies soon after taking a job as housekeeper to Doctor Curtius, a physician who makes wax models of organs and body parts. Little Marie moves to Paris with Curtius, where he opens a wax museum and trains her as his assistant. There, they sculpt first the heads of philosophes, then famous murderers, and eventually victims of the guillotine. (Those make for much more portable models, being detached from their bodies.) Marie's fortunes rise and fall with the politics of the era: She becomes an art tutor to Louis XVI's sister Elisabeth, then spends a stint in the Carmes Prison (where she shares a cell with the future Josephine Bonaparte). Carey (Lungdon, 2015, etc.) channels the ghosts of Charles Dickens, Henry Fielding, and the Brothers Grimm to tell Marie's tale, populating it with grotesques and horrors worthy of Madame Tussaud's celebrated wax museum. Little drawings punctuate the text, like Boz's cartoons in Dickens' books; Carey's rumination on wax recalls Dickens' on dust. In Carey's hands, life blurs with death, nature with artifice; his objects seem as animated as people while his people can appear as fragile and impotent as objects. Dolls, houses, carts, furniture, tailors' dummies, and, of course, waxworks have human feelings: "I had never before considered that carriage clocks could be disapproving, nor had I supposed a candelabra might resent lighting me. I had never stepped upon a carpet that did not wish me there, nor felt the enmity of a marble mantelpiece. Nor had I come upon a gold-braided stool whose fat little feet seemed aimed at my ankles. Not before I entered this room." Curtius "seemed made of rods, of broom handles, of great lengths." This artful anthropomorphism (and its opposite) perfectly suits a novel about that most lifelike medium of sculpture, wax--and its most famous modeler.A quirky, compelling story that deepens into a meditation on mortality and art.

     COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from September 1, 2018
     Carey, who writes for both YAs and adults, presents an immensely creative epic that follows a poor orphan's rise to become the famous Madame Tussaud. Born in 1761, and nicknamed Little for her petite size, Marie Grosholtz becomes the unpaid apprentice of her late mother's odd, nervous employer, Dr. Curtius. After fleeing to Paris, they join forces with a redoubtable widow and her son. Their skills with wax attract attention, leading to their unusual museum and Marie's invitation to tutor Princess Elisabeth at Versailles. At a time of rampant social disparities, the museum becomes a great equalizer: a place where royalty, poets, and notorious murderers?that is, their sculpted stand-ins?can be viewed up close, and ordinary people can participate in a lottery to be models themselves. Mingling a sense of playfulness with macabre history, Carey depicts the excesses of wealth and violence during the French Revolution through the eyes of a talented woman who lived through it and survived. The oddball characters and gothic eccentricities evoke Tim Burton's work but without any fantastical elements; the reality is sufficiently strange on its own. Carey shows how the seemingly absurd, like royal servants lodging in cupboards and artisans forced to re-create newly executed people's heads in wax, becomes shockingly routine. The unique perspective, witty narrative voice, and clever illustrations make for an irresistible read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from October 15, 2018
     

     Whimsy, magic, and macabre are words often used to describe the prose and illustrations of Carey (The Iremonger Trilogy), and this work of historical fiction is no exception. Anna Maria Grosholtz, aka Little, is a fatherless servant girl in the employ of a doctor with a particular skill for molding wax. Becoming his apprentice, Little moves from body parts to human heads and acquires a talent for realistic reproductions. Her ability manifests in befriending a princess, living in the Palace of Versailles, and navigating the tumultuous French Revolution. While literally shaping the heads of history with her hands, she also transforms her artistic skill into a commercial industry. Little is better known today as Madame Tussaud. Carey's vivid language and illustrations provide levity and wit within a imaginative but morbid tale of beheadings and destitution. VERDICT A wildly creative reimagining of the work and life of an artist more associated with George Clooney than Maximilien Robespierre. Admirers of Gregory Maguire will be delighted. [See Prepub Alert, 5/4/18.]--Joshua Finnell, Colgate Univ., Hamilton, NY

     Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity

725

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/e36069bf-e1ec-4b3b-97bd-3fce5a3a4ff3/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

e36069bf-e1ec-4b3b-97bd-3fce5a3a4ff3

starRating

4

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{E36069BF-E1EC-4B3B-97BD-3FCE5A3A4FF3}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{E36069BF-E1EC-4B3B-97BD-3FCE5A3A4FF3}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/E36/069/BF/{E36069BF-E1EC-4B3B-97BD-3FCE5A3A4FF3}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/E36/069/BF/{E36069BF-E1EC-4B3B-97BD-3FCE5A3A4FF3}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Fiction
2. • value: Literature
3. • value: Historical Fiction

publishDateText

10/23/2018

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780525534327

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE
"An amazing achievement. . . A compulsively readable novel, so canny and weird and surfeited with the reality of human capacity and ingenuity that I am stymied for comparison. Dickens and David Lynch? Defoe meets Margaret Atwood? Judge for yourself." —Gregory Maguire, New York Times-bestselling author of Wicked
The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud.
In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris,...

sortTitle

Little A Novel

crossRefId

3844786

subtitle

A Novel

publisher

Penguin Publishing Group

bisacCodes

1. • code: FIC014000
   • description: FICTION / Historical / General
2. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary
3. • code: FIC041000
   • description: Fiction / Biographical