Book of the Week and bibliography - Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger

The Little Stranger is the fifth novel from Sarah Waters, who is now an established and popular writer. Consequently, the print run will be large and signed first editions relatively easily available. However, the novel is well worth picking up and I also provide below an update on her earlier novels and their current values.

Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature and has been an associate lecturer with the Open University. She has won a Betty Trask Award, the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. In 2003, she was named Author of the Year three times: by the British Book Awards, The Booksellers’ Association and Waterstone’s Booksellers. She was also chosen as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. Fingersmith won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical Crime Fiction and the South Bank Show Award for Literature and both Fingersmith and The Night Watch were shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith have all been adapted for television. The Night Watch is currently in development with the BBC. Sarah Waters lives in south London.

“In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners – mother, son and daughter – are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.”


Bibliography and guide to current values (May 2009)

Tipping the Velvet (Virago, 1998, paperback). £40 up for a VG or better copy.

Affinity (Virago, 1999, paperback). £30-40 up for a VG or better copy.

Fingersmith (Virago, 2002, hardcover). Still available at £10 or less.

The Night Watch (Virago, 2006, hardcover). The Trade edition available at £10 or less. The limited signed edition, 1000 copies in slipcase, available at around £25.

The Little Stranger (Virago, 2009, hardcover). Trade edition in dustwrapper. 1000 copies of a limited signed edition, without dustwrapper but in slipcase, direct from Waterstones. There is also a variant numbered 1 - 100, apparently intended for the Australian market.