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  • Published: 3 September 2023
  • ISBN: 9781784703608
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $29.99

First Love, Last Rites




Re-jacketed in stunning new series style, this is the first book from Booker prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling Ian McEwan.

Taut, brooding and densely atmospheric, these stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness.

  • Published: 3 September 2023
  • ISBN: 9781784703608
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen books. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.

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Praise for First Love, Last Rites

Marks the debut of a talented and genuinely imaginative writer

Julian Barnes, New Statesman

As promising a first collection of stories as I have ever come across

Vogue

Ian McEwan writes to shock and succeeds... It is a tour-de-force of concision, and funny, too, in a deadpan manner

Gabriele Annan, Times Literary Supplement

And now for a brand new writer of formidable talent, Ian McEwan who is 27. His stories First Love, Last Rites…are the most devastating debut I have seen for a long time

Peter Lewis, Daily Mail

A brilliant debut by the most promising writer around

A. Alvarez, Observer Books of the Year

Now 40 years since first publication, McEwan's first published work is still his most hauntingly dark and atmospheric.

Esquire

A talented and genuine imaginative writer. McEwan's details often grow into strange, powerful images - the ironies, throughout this impressive collection, are tellingly weighted

Julian Barnes

A writer of uncanny power

Time

A brilliant performance

Observer

Ian McEwan writes to shock and succeeds... All his stories have a feeling of impending evil - it is a tour de force of concision, and funny, too, in a deadpan manner

Times Literary Supplement

His writing is exact, tender, funny, voluptuous, disturbing

The Times

The Maestro

New Statesman

McEwan has - a style and a vision of life of his own... No one interested in the state and mood of contemporary Britain can afford not to read him

John Fowles

A sparkling and adventurous writer

Dennis Potter

Marks the debut of a talented and genuinely imaginative writer

Julian Barnes, New Statesman

As promising a first collection of stories as I have ever come across

Vogue

Ian McEwan writes to shock and succeeds... It is a tour-de-force of concision, and funny, too, in a deadpan manner

Gabriele Annan, Times Literary Supplement

And now for a brand new writer of formidable talent, Ian McEwan who is 27. His stories First Love, Last Rites…are the most devastating debut I have seen for a long time

Peter Lewis, Daily Mail

A brilliant debut by the most promising writer around

A. Alvarez, Observer Books of the Year

Marks the debut of a talented and genuinely imaginative writer

Julian Barnes, New Statesman

As promising a first collection of stories as I have ever come across

Vogue

Ian McEwan writes to shock and succeeds... It is a tour-de-force of concision, and funny, too, in a deadpan manner

Gabriele Annan, Times Literary Supplement

And now for a brand new writer of formidable talent, Ian McEwan who is 27. His stories First Love, Last Rites…are the most devastating debut I have seen for a long time

Peter Lewis, Daily Mail

A brilliant debut by the most promising writer around

A. Alvarez, Observer Books of the Year

Now 40 years since first publication, McEwan's first published work is still his most hauntingly dark and atmospheric.

Esquire