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Also by A.S. Byatt:

The Children's Book, October 2009
Hardcover

THE CHILDREN'S BOOK
By: A.S. Byatt

Knopf
October 2009
On Sale: October 6, 2009
688 pages
ISBN: 0307272095
EAN: 9780307272096
Hardcover
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Fiction Family Life

From the Booker Prize–winning author of Possession, a dazzling new novel that spans the years from the Victorian era through World War I and centers around a famous children’s book author and the passions, betrayals, and secrets that tear apart the people she loves. When Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the Victoria and Albert Museum—a boy who could be a character out of one of Olive’s magical tales—she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends. But the midsummer bacchanals the Wellwoods host at their rambling country house—and the private books that Olive writes for each of her seven children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. As these lives—of adults and children alike—unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods is slowly uncovered. Yet a far larger danger awaits: the Great War lies ahead, and it will leave no one unscathed. Suspenseful, seductive, at once sweeping and intimate, The Children’s Book is a masterly literary achievement by one of our most essential writers.

Media Buzz

On The Media - September 3, 2011
Diane Rehm Show - NPR - October 5, 2009