Rich and engrossing, there is an extraordinary potency to Carey’s material . . . A visceral, vivid and moving novel

Guardian

One of the most original historical novels of the year . . . Inspired, vivid and macabre, Little is a remarkable achievement’

Sunday Times Book of the Year

Don’t miss this eccentric charmer

Wonderful

The beautifully told (and illustrated!) story of the life of Marie Tussaud, or how tall trees can grow from small seeds. An eccentric atmosphere, a macabre sense of humour, we experience this book with a sense of youthful joy. An unmissable book

Startlingly original . . . [Carey] finds and treasures the ironies and macabre eccentricities of Tussaud’s world. The pages are also enriched by his beautiful and haunting illustrations

Times Book of the Year

Edward Carey is one of the strangest writers we are privileged to have in this country

Observer

Absolutely brilliant

Marie’s story is fascinating in itself, but Carey’s talent makes her journey a thing of wonder

New York Times

Uniquely inventive . . . It is variously nightmarish, dreamy, sensual, emotionally affecting and very funny

Big Issue Book of the Year

A gripping novel of shy wit and darkly humorous occurrences . . . Mesmerising in its virtuosity

Irish Independent

Carey creates a quirky, indelible character in Little, sprinkles idiosyncratic drawings throughout and folds his narrative in cunning ways

BBC Culture

A tale as moving as it is macabre

Mail on Sunday

A darkly fascinating tale packed full of vivid historical detail and quaint, engaging characters

Sunday Express

Compelling . . . Carey’s story is cinematic in scope and fairy tale-like in its attention to coincidence – and to the fateful cycle of pride and fall

TLS

Poignant and absorbing

Literary Review

Clever and intriguing

Daily Mail

In this gloriously gruesome imagining of the girlhood of Marie Tussaud, mistress of wax, fleas will bite, rats will run and heads will roll and roll and roll . . . I bloody loved it

Spectator

A startlingly remarkable flight of historical fancy where fact, fiction, tragedy and Grand Guignol collide

i Newspaper

Carey’s flair for macabre whimsy has drawn comparisons to Tim Burton – but while death haunts this story, Little is a novel that teems with life

Time

Written with relentless energy, flair and finesse

The Herald

Full of rich detail and beautiful illustrations . . . A rare treat that will stay with you long after you turn the final page

Heat

What a bizarrely brilliant book. An absorbing, moving and darkly humorous reimagining of the life of Marie Groscholtz, the little servant girl who would become Madame Tussaud

By turns witty, ghoulish and poignant – a historical novel unlike any other’

BBC History Magazine

Strange and delightful’

Vanity Fair

Little is that rare thing – a unique novel with a unique and fully realised voice, rich in deadpan wit and surgically precise observation. By turns tragic, bizarre and deeply moving, it is an absolute delight

An utter triumph . . . I was blown away

Compulsively readable: 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 Atwood? Judge for yourself

Edward Carey writes wonderfully weird books about wonderfully weird things. This one is a hefty historical novel that promises to be a pageturner

An exquisitely disturbing treasure of a novel. Sensual, unassumingly poignant, hilarious, heartbreaking, cruel, joyous: one of the most intoxicating novels I’ve ever read

Moving, dark, and occasionally heartbreaking – a book to be read by the light of a flickering candle

Bawdy, tragic, mesmerising, hilarious. If you’ve forgotten why you’d even read a novel, Edward Carey is here to set you straight

Exquisitely sensitive to all the warmth, vigour, humour, woe, and peculiarities of human nature, as if Carey had a dowsing rod capable of divining what hides within the human heart

I marvel at the achievement of this book . . . Little isn’t about history; it’s about humans, and bodies, and art, and loneliness, and it’s deeply, painfully sad. I could talk about it forever

NPR

Dark and delightful, playful and peculiar, Little is simply magnetic: Carey’s words seem to dance on the page. Little is big in many ways: creativity, energy, concept and character. Leave plenty of room in your heart for this one; you’ll need it

Shelf Awareness

With an irresistible cast of grotesques and a delicious lightness of touch, Little delivers a great and peculiar vision of Paris crashing over the rapids

Strong Words Magazine

A perfectly weaved story of a woman who has captured the imagination of many, but has been written about by few

Culture Trip

This historical novel about the wax-sculptor who would become the world-renowned Madame Tussaud looks uncannily like a real-life classic

Washington Post

The kind of book you want to shove into the hands of all your friends, just so you have someone to gush about it with

Buzzfeed

Little is quirky, eccentric, offbeat, Gothic and all the other descriptives fondly applied to Carey’s peculiarly elegant prose

Dallas Morning News

Gruesomely entertaining . . . This rousing, macabre novel showcases a sensibility that falls somewhere between Les Misérables and the works of Edward Gorey

Barnes & Noble

There is nothing ordinary about this book. Carey, with sumptuous turns of phrase, fashions a fantastical world that churns with vitality . . . at once surreal and full of heart

Publishers Weekly

Carey channels the ghosts of Dickens, Fielding, and the Brothers Grimm to tell Marie’s tale . . . A quirky, compelling story that deepens into a meditation on mortality and art

Kirkus Reviews

A wonderfully weird exploration of spectacles, from wax heads to revolutions, that will delight lovers of the macabre

BookPage

Lavishly illustrated with strange and compelling drawings, Little is a boldly original reimagining of the life of Madame Tussaud

Library Journal

An immensely creative epic . . . The unique perspective, witty narrative voice, and clever illustrations make for an irresistible read

Booklist