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The Cider House Rules
  • Published: 31 March 1999
  • ISBN: 9780552992046
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 704
  • RRP: $32.99

The Cider House Rules

Formats & editions
Paperback
25 Aug 2026
Paperback
31 Mar 1999
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A masterpiece from one of the great contemporary American writers.

'The reason Homer Wells kept his name was that he came back to St Cloud's so many times, after so many failed foster homes, that the orphanage was forced to acknowledge Homer's intention to make St Cloud's his home.'

Homer Wells' odyssey begins among the apple orchards of rural Maine. As the oldest unadopted child at St Cloud's orphanage, he strikes up a profound and unusual friendship with Wilbur Larch, the orphanage's founder - a man of rare compassion and an addiction to ether. What he learns from Wilbur takes him from his early apprenticeship in the orphanage surgery, to an adult life running a cider-making factory and a strange relationship with the wife of his closest friend...
  • Published: 31 March 1999
  • ISBN: 9780552992046
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 704
  • RRP: $32.99
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About the author

John Irving

John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book Award three times – winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. He also received an O. Henry Award, in 1981, for the short story ‘Interior Space’. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules – a film with seven Academy Award nominations. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. For more information about the author, please visit www.john-irving.com
portrait photo of John Irving

Also by John Irving

Avenue of Mysteries
In One Person
Last Night in Twisted River
Until I Find You
The Fourth Hand
A Widow For One Year
Setting Free The Bears
See all

Praise for The Cider House Rules

The Cider House Rules is difficult to define and impossible not to admire

Daily Telegraph

John Irving has been compared with Kurt Vonnegut and J. D. Salinger but is arguably more inventive than either. Wry, laconic, he sketches his characters with an economy that springs from a feeling for words and mastery over his craft. This superbly original book is one to be read and remembered

The Times

Funnier than Garp...it's an irresistibly readable yarn spun by a master's voice

Time Out

Like the rest of Irving's fiction, it is often disconcerting, but always exciting and provoking

Observer