MELMOTH

From the internationally bestselling author of The Essex Serpent—soon to be an Apple TV+ Series“Masterful...scary and smart, working as a horror story but also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of will and love. Perry did as much in her richly praised novel The Essex Serpent, but this is a deeper, more complex novel and more rewarding.”—The Washington PostIn Melmoth, Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, a mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe for centuries, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters—and now, it is heading in our direction.It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts—or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.But, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. And then Karel disappears....

Washington Post

“Masterful…scary and smart, working as a horror story but also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of will and love. Perry did as much in her richly praised novel The Essex Serpent, but this is a deeper, more complex novel and more rewarding.”

New York Times Book Review

“Another Gothic stunner…a scary novel that chills to the bone even as it points the way to a warmer, more humane, place.”

Wall Street Journal

“Ms. Perry, whose last book, The Essex Serpent, was a breakout hit, again proves herself a master of atmosphere.”

NPR Book of the Year

“The past few years have brought a glut of fashionably affectless and amoral fiction, to which Sarah Perry’s fierce, full-hearted books about love and ethics feel like the perfect antidote.”

Entertainment Weekly

“A gothic masterwork.”

NPR

“The last few years have brought a glut of fashionably affectless and amoral fiction....Sarah Perry’s fierce, full-hearted books about love and ethics feel like an antidote to that elegant apathy....In a world that feels desperate, chaotic, and unredeemable, Melmoth asks us to be witnesses for each other.”

New York Times

“Reels you in, using the same trick of all the best ghost stories, from The Turn of the Screw on: Is there really a ghost before you? Or do you see the projection of your own secret sins and desires? What is more frightening than the human?”

The Guardian

“A novel that manages that vanishingly rare feat – being at once hugely readable and profoundly important…Perry’s masterly piece of postmodern gothic is one of the great literary achievements of our young century.”

People

“The author of The Essex Serpent casts another haunting spell in this exquisitely written gothic novel.”

Financial Times

“Filled with thought-provoking ideas on historical guilt and personal responsibility, as well as a depth of learning…the message at its heart is an uplifting one; even if redemption for wrongdoing cannot always be achieved, there is power in bearing witness.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An unforgettable achievement…Perry’s heartbreaking, horrifying monster confronts the characters not just with the uncanny but also with the human: with humanity’s complicity in history’s darkest moments, its capacity for guilt, its power of witness, and its longing for both companionship and redemption.”

Library Journal (starred review)

“This fever dream of a novel will prove as compelling and all-consuming as The Essex Serpent.”

Booklist (starred review)

“[A] stylized, postmodern work by a masterly writer… a sobering, disturbing, yet powerful and moving book that cannot fail to impress. The stories-within-stories and the Jewish themes recall Dara Horn’s The World to Come and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, although Melmoth presents different kinds of nightmares.”

BookPage

“A gorgeously wrought tale that feels as timeless as its title character and as real as the monster you’re sure is sitting at the foot of your bed. Perry doesn’t waste a word of this lean, taut novel...by the end you’re happily trapped in its eerie embrace.”

New York

“A single-handed revival of the Gothic tradition.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Ingenious… haunting, disquieting and memorable, and showcase[s] Perry’s dazzling creative powers.”

Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“[A] spine-tingling, gloriously creepy tale … this is horror done masterfully.”

AU Review

“A richly layered novel that will likely blossom even further with repeated readings…Atmospheric, emotive, and hauntingly beautiful, there’s so much to explore and so much to savor that it will undoubtedly follow you long after you finish.”

Bustle

“A spine-tingling story about despair and regret...[Perry’s] gorgeous lyricism and stunning prose make it difficult not to fall deeply for Melmoth, just as its fascinating characters and nested storytelling make it impossible not to get pulled into its darkness.”

Vox

“The best word to describe Melmoth, the latest novel from Essex Serpent author Sarah Perry, is lush. This is a novel where every sentence has been wrapped in layer upon layer of velvet.”

Daily Mail (UK)

“Arguably the most eagerly awaited novel of the year... a playful, bona fide page-turner.”

The Spectator

“Sarah Perry is the real deal, an accomplished and often beautiful writer, and this book, like her first two, is full of power and makes an unforgettable impact.”

Radio 4

“The novel explores some of humanity’s darkest actions, asks us to consider our deepest secrets and conveys the importance of bearing witness to unspeakable events. At the same time, it’s also a novel of redemption, of the possibility of forgiveness, hope and reconciliation, and the healing power of love.”

Book Riot

“Haunting…Whether you want an unsettling autumnal read or a compelling piece of literary horror, this book will satisfy your craving and keep you hooked till the very last page.”

New Statesman

“Perry produces work that is substantial but also light of touch, filled with ambiguity, doubt and moral seriousness, and at the same time pacy, droll, vivid.”

Literary Review

“Melmoth chooses not to flinch away in such a fashion but rather rushes, full tilt and without apology, towards the uncanny... This bold, ambitious piece of work is a serious contribution to contemporary gothic.”

The Bookseller

“Perry has crafted an atmospheric, gothic tale with the requisite bumps and shocks, but one that also asks profound and powerful questions about morality.”

The Scotsman

“A very good, very enjoyable, very moving and very subtle novel…you won’t expect the ending. And don’t leave an empty chair outside.”

Independent

“Haunting”

New Republic

“A brilliant, spooky meditation on the sins of history…If The Essex Serpent mined Victorian history for a legend and worked it up into a romance with broader social themes, then Melmoth repeats that trick in multiple dimensions.”

and retaining the strength and moral courage to strive for the future.”

“In rich, lyrical prose, Perry weaves history and myth, human frailty and compassion, into an affecting gothic morality tale for 2018. A chilling novel about confronting our complicity in past atrocities

From the Back Cover

For centuries, a mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters—and now, in Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction.It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts—or, at least, unpronounced sanctuary. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth hunts her prey through the ages, dooming those she captures to the damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.But, unaware, as Helen wanders the cobblestone streets, she is being watched. And then Karel disappears . . . Including an unforgettable cast of characters—among them Helen and her circle in contemporary Prague; a young woman in 1930s Cairo; a junior Ottoman bureaucrat during World War I; a child in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia; a young man caring for his severely ill brother in a Manila hospital; and a desperate refugee from central Africa, precariously seeking shelter in 2017 London—Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent is a haunting novel of Gothic dread and moral struggle, a masterpiece of suspense, reckoning, and incandescent midnight.

About the Author

Sarah Perry is the internationally bestselling author of The Essex Serpent, Melmoth, and After Me Comes the Flood. She lives in England.

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