Enlightenment

Sarah Perry author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:1st May '25

Should be back in stock very soon

This paperback is available in other editions too:

Enlightenment cover

Immerse yourself in a story of love and astronomy across two centuries – from the #1 bestselling author of The Essex Serpent.


**Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024**

‘IT’S GLORIOUS… A BEAUTIFUL, MEMORABLE NOVEL’ OBSERVER

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their religion and their desire to explore the world. But their friendship is ruptured by the arrival of love.

Over the course of twenty years, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as a devastating story of passion and scientific adventure unfolds and Aldleigh’s unique mysteries are revealed.

‘Absorbing… A romance worthy of Emily Brontë’WALL STREET JOURNAL

‘You’ll get lost in the pages’ ELLE

‘Sarah Perry creates worlds to disappear into… Beautiful, vivid’ BBC

‘One of contemporary fiction’s brightest stars’GLAMOUR

5-STAR READER REVIEWS
‘Vibrates with wonder’
‘I absolutely loved it’
‘Full of magic’
‘Exquisite…strange and wonderful and unpredictable’
‘This book tore my heart apart then put it back together again’

*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE GUARDIAN, DAILY TELEGRAPH AND DAILY MAIL*

Gauzy and unhurried, a genteel novel of inner space.It’s luxuriously – defiantly – old-fashioned... Perry has always produced gorgeous prose, and she has found a new, ethereal register in this book * Guardian *
A genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories... A heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet * Telegraph *
A rich, surprising book that dazzles and dizzies the reader. It balances reason with belief, excels in both ideas and action, and, though firmly placed in Perry’s homeland of Essex, it’s a book with cosmic reach * Financial Times *
Extraordinary and ambitious... What Perry has done in this layered, intelligent and moving book is to construct a kind of quantum novel, one that asks us to question conventional linear narratives and recognise instead what is ever-present in Perry’s luminous vision of Essex: truth, beauty and love * Observer *
Dazzling… Faith and science can inspire out-of-time cosmic wonder, but as Perry beautifully demonstrates here, so, too, can the novel * Daily Mail *
Tender, ruminative, philosophical * Times Literary Supplement *
Sarah Perry just gets better and better… A fat, satisfying, grown-up novel – rich in plot, characters, ideas, structure, and atmosphere… It hangs together as a resplendent whole, shining like a night sky * Independent *
Gorgeously written… A beautiful, compassionate and memorable book, one that will repay reading more than once * New Scientist *
Perry has returned with another cracker. A dazzling novel, full of big ideas about religion and science, love and friendship * i *
It’s glorious, doing what her books do best: intertwining a love story with reams of esoteric learning and big ideas… This is a beautiful, memorable novel * Observer, *Books to Look Out For 2024* *

ISBN: 9781529927788

Dimensions: 199mm x 130mm x 24mm

Weight: 284g

400 pages