• Tipping The Velvet by Sarah Waters
  • Tipping The Velvet by Sarah Waters
  • Tipping The Velvet by Sarah Waters
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Tipping The Velvet

  • Author
    • Sarah Waters
£10.99
£10.99

From the oyster huts of Whitstable to the music halls of Victorian London, Tipping the Velvet is the glorious first novel from this much-loved author



'Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.'

A saucy, sensuous and multi-layered historical romance, Tipping the Velvet follows the glittering career of Nan King - oyster girl turned music-hall star turned rent boy turned East End 'tom'.

'Erotic and absorbing... Written with startling power' New York Times Book Review

'An unstoppable read, a sexy and picaresque romp through the lesbian and queer demi-monde of the roaries Nineties' Independent on Sunday

'Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit' Observer

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  • Published: May 16 2024
  • 196 x 128mm
  • ISBN: 9780349018485
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Press Reviews

  • Independent
    Intelligent, witty and stylish, the novel re-imagines a lost lesbian history through vivid sensual detail, evocative period slang (the title is a sexual euphemism) and a satisfyingly complex plot
  • Observer
    Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit. This is a lively, gutsy, highly readable debut
  • Independent on Sunday
    An unstoppable read, a sexy and picaresque romp through the lesbian and queer demi-monde of the roaring Nineties. Imagine Jeanette Winterson on a good day collaborating with Judith Butler to pen a Sapphic Moll Flanders. It's gorgeous
  • Daily Telegraph
    This could be the most important debut of its kind since that of Jeanette Winterson

  • Christina Patterson

    Observer
    An extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit in a skilled, multi-layered pastiche of the lesbian historical romance
  • New York Times Book Review
    Erotic and absorbing... Written with startling power
  • San Francisco Chronicle
    Wonderful... a sensual experience that leaves the reader marveling at the author's craftsmanship, idiosyncrasy, and sheer effort
  • Newsday
    Compelling... readers of all sexes and orientations should identify with this gutsy hero as she learns who she is and how to love
  • Seattle Times
    Delectable... written in roguishly lilting prose filled with the sights, sounds and stenches of London street life
  • Boston Globe
    Glorious... an exceptional debut
  • Kirkus
    Richly entertaining... Waters's debut offers terrific entertainment: swiftly paced, crammed with colorful depictions of 1890s London and vividly sketched Dickensian supporting characters, pulsating with highly charged (and explicitly presented) erotic heat
  • Publishers Weekly
    This lush tale fearlessly and feverishly exposes the political, social and sexual subversions of Victorian-era gender-benders: sapphists, libertines and passing women... Waters is a masterful storyteller... Nancy's search for love and identity is a raucous, passionate adventure and a rare, thrilling read