The Handmaiden, a film adaptation of Fingersmith, directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Kim Tae-Ri, is now available.
Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.
One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.
With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.
The Handmaiden, a film adaptation of Fingersmith, directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Kim Tae-Ri, is now available.
Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.
One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.
With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.
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Find Fingersmith Sarah Waters in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
Find Fingersmith Sarah Waters in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
3 books in catalog
Historical fiction featuring intricate period settings and subverted classic tropes gained widespread recognition through atmospheric narratives set in Victorian England and mid-twentieth-century Britain. Sarah Waters, born in 1966, established her literary reputation with acclaimed historical novels such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, blending meticulous research with psychological suspense. Her narratives frequently explore Victorian society, social class, and concealed personal identities, introducing queer perspectives into rich historical frameworks.
Sarah Ann Waters was born on 21 July 1966 in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales. She pursued higher education at the University of Kent, Lancaster University, and Queen Mary University of London, earning degrees in English literature. Her debut novel, Tipping the Velvet, was published in 1998 and won the Betty Trask Award. She followed this success with Affinity in 1999, winning the Somerset Maugham Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Her third novel, Fingersmith (2002), was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize, winning the South Bank Show Award for Literature and the CWA Historical Dagger. Waters subsequently published The Night Watch (2006), The Little Stranger (2009), and The Paying Guests (2014). She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, named Author of the Year by the British Book Awards and Waterstone's, and was appointed an OBE in 2019. Screen adaptations of her work include television miniseries for the BBC and the 2016 South Korean film The Handmaiden.
Waters's writing combines Gothic atmosphere, historical precision, and layered plotting. Her stories often examine the restrictions of social class, institutional spaces, and the hidden domestic lives of women in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain. By placing lesbian relationships at the structural center of her fiction, she reinterprets conventional Victorian and post-war literary conventions while maintaining narrative tension and psychological realism.
3 books in catalog
Historical fiction featuring intricate period settings and subverted classic tropes gained widespread recognition through atmospheric narratives set in Victorian England and mid-twentieth-century Britain. Sarah Waters, born in 1966, established her literary reputation with acclaimed historical novels such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, blending meticulous research with psychological suspense. Her narratives frequently explore Victorian society, social class, and concealed personal identities, introducing queer perspectives into rich historical frameworks.
Sarah Ann Waters was born on 21 July 1966 in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales. She pursued higher education at the University of Kent, Lancaster University, and Queen Mary University of London, earning degrees in English literature. Her debut novel, Tipping the Velvet, was published in 1998 and won the Betty Trask Award. She followed this success with Affinity in 1999, winning the Somerset Maugham Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Her third novel, Fingersmith (2002), was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize, winning the South Bank Show Award for Literature and the CWA Historical Dagger. Waters subsequently published The Night Watch (2006), The Little Stranger (2009), and The Paying Guests (2014). She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, named Author of the Year by the British Book Awards and Waterstone's, and was appointed an OBE in 2019. Screen adaptations of her work include television miniseries for the BBC and the 2016 South Korean film The Handmaiden.
Waters's writing combines Gothic atmosphere, historical precision, and layered plotting. Her stories often examine the restrictions of social class, institutional spaces, and the hidden domestic lives of women in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain. By placing lesbian relationships at the structural center of her fiction, she reinterprets conventional Victorian and post-war literary conventions while maintaining narrative tension and psychological realism.
