Barry Unsworth

Winner of the Booker Prize

Liverpool, 1752. William Kemp has lost a fortune in cotton speculation, and must recoup his losses if his son is to marry the wealthy woman whom he loves. His last resort is a slave ship, one that will take him to the Guinea coast, where he will trade for human cargo, then embark on the infamous Middle Passage. When disease ravages the ship and the African prisoners mutiny, William’s profit-seeking venture falls apart. Slaves and sailors alike will join together to found a utopian community on the coast of Florida—not knowing that the vengeful, younger Kemp is in pursuit. Unsworth’s tour de force is a profound meditation on the sacred hunger—the greed—couched within human nature, animating the slave trade. It is a novel that transcends its setting, illuminating larger truths that resonate to this day.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Texas

En route to America with a cargo of African slaves, the crew of the Liverpool Merchant, enraged at the captain's impotence in the face of disease, carry out a mutiny that pits two cousins against each other.

Sacred Hunger

68868499-5f48-4d5c-9e61-8637c8ff5978-1

Illinois

The year is 1908, the place, a small Greek island in the declining days of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. For twenty years Basil Pascali has spied on the people of his small community and secretly reported on their activities to the authorities in Constantinople. Although his reports are never acknowledged, never acted upon, he has received regular payment for his work. Now he fears that the villagers have found him out and he becomes engulfed in paranoia. In the midst of his panic, a charming Englishman arrives on the island claiming to be an archaeologist, and charms his way into the heart of the woman for whom Pascali pines. A complex game is played out between the two where cunning and betrayal may come to haunt them both. Pascali's Island was made into a feature film starring Ben Kingsley and Helen Mirren.

Pascalis Island

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Washington

In fourteenth-century England a troupe of traveling players gathers information about a local murder and incorporates it into their play in hopes of drawing a larger audience.

Morality Play

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This is a modern retelling of the Greek classic.  As the ships are ready to sail to Troy to capture Helen, the political madness of Agamemnon comes to a horrible conclusion.

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Minnesota

“Troy meant one thing only to the men gathered here, as it did to their commanders. Troy was a dream of wealth; and if the wind continued the dream would crumble.”

As the harsh wind holds the Greek fleet trapped in the straits at Aulis, frustration and political impotence turn into a desire for the blood of a young and innocent woman – blood that will appease the gods and allow the troops to set sail. And when Iphigeneia, Agamemnon’s beloved daughter, is brought to the coast under false pretences, and when a knife is fashioned out of the finest and most precious of materials, it looks as if the ships will soon be on their way. But can a father really go to these lengths to secure political victory, and can a daughter willingly give up her life for the worldly ambitions of her father?

Throwing off the heroic values we expect of them, Barry Unsworth’s mythic characters embrace the political ethos of the twenty-first century and speak in words we recognize as our own. The blowhard Odysseus warns the men to not “marginalize” Agamemnon and to “strike while the bronze is hot.” High-sounding principles clash with private motives, and dark comedy ensues. Here is a novel that stands the world on its head.

The Songs of the Kings

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Pennsylvania

A novel of obsession, this is the story of a man unable to see himself separately from the hero he mistakenly idolizes--Lord Horatio Nelson, Britain's greatest admiral.

Losing Nelson

dd5e338c-978a-4df1-84c4-f3644fd6f94f-0

Oregon

A brilliant retelling of an ancient myth, The Songs of the Kings offers up a different narrative of the Trojan War, one devoid of honor, wherein the mission to rescue Helen is a pretext for plundering Troy of its treasures. As the ships of the Greek fleet find themselves stalled in the straits at Aulis, waiting vainly for the gods to deliver more favorable winds, Odysseus cynically advances a call for the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter, Calchas the diviner interprets events for the reader, and a Homer-like figure called the Singer is persuaded to proclaim a tale of a just war to hide the corrupt motivations of those in power. But couched within the Singer’s spin is a message at once timely and timeless: “There is always another story. But it is the stories told by the strong, the songs of kings, that are believed in the end.”

New Jersey

The Ruby in Her Navel

c80984b4-3426-4ba3-99aa-9fd2895c52ab-1

New York

Barry Unsworth returns to the terrain of his Booker Prize-winning novel Sacred Hunger, this time following Sullivan, the Irish fiddler, and Erasmus Kemp, son of a Liverpool slave ship owner who hanged himself. It is the spring of 1767, and to avenge his father's death, Erasmus Kemp has had the rebellious sailors of his father's ship, including Sullivan, brought back to London to stand trial on charges of mutiny and piracy. But as the novel opens, a blithe Sullivan has escaped and is making his way on foot to the north of England, stealing as he goes and sleeping where he can.

His destination is Thorpe in the East Durham coalfields, where his dead shipmate, Billy Blair, lived: he has pledged to tell the family how Billy met his end.

In this village, Billy's sister, Nan, and her miner husband, James Bordon, live with their three sons, all destined to follow their father down the pit. The youngest, only seven, is enjoying his last summer aboveground.

Meanwhile, in London, a passionate anti-slavery campaigner, Frederick Ashton, gets involved in a second case relating to the lost ship. Erasmus Kemp wants compensation for the cargo of sick slaves who were thrown overboard to drown, and Ashton is representing the insurers who dispute his claim. Despite their polarized views on slavery, Ashton's beautiful sister, Jane, encounters Erasmus Kemp and finds herself powerfully attracted to him.

Lord Spenton, who owns coal mines in East-Durham, has extravagant habits and is pressed for money. When he applies to the Kemp merchant bank for a loan, Erasmus sees a business opportunity of the kind he has long been hoping for, a way of gaining entry into Britain's rapidly developingnbsp;and highly profitable coal and steel industries.
Thus he too makes his way north, to the very same village that Sullivan is heading for . . .

With historical sweep and deep pathos, Unsworth explores the struggles of the powerless and the captive against the rich and the powerful, and what weight mercy may throw on the scales of justice.

The Quality of Mercy

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A New York Times Notable Book In medieval England, a runaway scholar-priest named Nicholas Barber has joined a traveling theater troupe as they make their way toward their liege lord’s castle. In need of money, they decide to perform at a village en route. When their traditional morality plays fail to garner them an audience, they begin to stage the “the play of Thomas Wells”—their own depiction of the real-life drama unfolding within the village around the murder of a young boy. The villagers believe they have already identified the killer, and the troupe believes their play will be a straightforward depiction of justice served. But soon the players soon learn that the details of the crime are elusive, and the lines between performance and reality become blurred as they discover, scene by scene, line by line, what really happened. Thought-provoking and unforgettable, Morality Play is at once a masterful work of historical fiction, a gripping murder mystery, and a literary work of the first order.

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Maryland

In 1908 Englishman Robert Markham is appointed to the British legation in Turkey.

The Rage of the Vulture

0cb428d2-a924-4553-b566-6c81781ae27b-0

The national bestseller: A medieval murder mystery full of the wonders of the time--and lessons for our own time--by a master storyteller.

The time is the fourteenth century. The place is a small town in rural England, and the setting a snow-laden winter. A small troupe of actors accompanied by Nicholas Barber, a young renegade priest, prepare to play the drama of their lives. Breaking the longstanding tradition of only performing religious plays, the groups leader, Martin, wants them to enact the murder that is foremost in the townspeoples minds. A young boy has been found dead, and a mute-and-deaf girl has been arrested and stands to be hanged for the murder. As members of the troupe delve deeper into the circumstances of the murder, they find themselves entering a political and class feud that may undo them. Intriguing and suspenseful, Morality Play is an exquisite work that captivates by its power, while opening up the distant past as new to the reader.

Former library book. Yellowed/curled edges. Ink stains on top corner of front and back covers. 


Nebraska

California

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Sacred Hunger, "a vivid, sinuous, profound, and entirely beguiling venture." --Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times. Set in the beautiful landscape and rich history of Umbria, Italy, Booker Prize-winning author Barry Unsworth has written a witty and illuminating work of contemporary manners and morals. The region where Hannibal defeated the Romans is now prey to a different type of invasion: outsiders buying villas with innocent and not so innocent dreams. Among those clustered along one hillside road are the Greens, a retired American couple seeking serenity; the Chapmans, whose dispute over a wall escalates into a feud of operatic proportions; and Fabio and Arturo, a gay couple who, searching for peace and self-sufficiency, find treachery instead. Add to this mix a wily and corrupt British "building expert," and a lawyer who practices subterfuge and plans his client's actions like military strategy, and you have a sharp, entertaining, and satisfyingly bittersweet work.

After Hannibal

326118f2-f16f-4823-9dcd-2b3281c3f22b-1

Former library book. Contains normal markings of a library such as stickers, stamps, card pockets and plastic covers. The book does not contain any other markings, highlighting or writing in the book pages.

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A mysterious sculpture of a beautiful and erotic Madonna holds the key to the Fornarini family's secrets. When Raikes, a conservation expert, tries to restore her, he is swept under the statue's spell and swept under the spell of the seductive Chiara Litsov, a member of the Fornarini family now married to a famous sculptor. Raikes finds himself losing all moral grounding as his love for statue and woman intertwine in lust and murder.

Stone Virgin

63133e2a-7b7f-4fab-aed3-4ca37e2506c7-1

Both are advance reading copies and in perfect new condition. This is a bundle of two books. One includes a letter from publisher, Nan Talese.

After Hannibal and Morality Play

Bundle-Barry Unsworth *Advance Copies

#historicalfiction #thequalityofmercy #barryunsworth #bookerprize #sacredhunger #slavery #suicide #trial #london Light shelf wear to dust jacket and page edges (see pictures). For similar 🔖Bookmark Journey 📚 titles, click #bookmarkjourneyhistoricalfiction

A Novel

Virginia

"Troy meant one thing only to the men gathered here, as it did to their commanders. Troy was a dream of wealth; and if the wind continued the dream would crumble." As the harsh wind holds the Greek fleet trapped in the straits at Aulis, frustration and political impotence turn into a desire for the blood of a young and innocent woman--blood that will appease the gods and allow the troops to set sail. And when Iphigeneia, Agamemnon's beloved daughter, is brought to the coast under false pretences, and when a knife is fashioned out of the finest and most precious of materials, it looks as if the ships will soon be on their way. But can a father really go to these lengths to secure political victory, and can a daughter willingly give up her life for the worldly ambitions of her father?Throwing off the heroic values we expect of them, Barry Unsworth's mythic characters embrace the political ethos of the twenty-first century and speak in words we recognize as our own. The blowhard Odysseus warns the men to not "marginalize" Agamemnon and to "strike while the bronze is hot." High-sounding principles clash with private motives, and dark comedy ensues. Here is a novel that stands the world on its head.

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Barry Unsworth

Sacred Hunger

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Barry Unsworth

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The Songs of the Kings

Barry Unsworth

Losing Nelson

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The Ruby in Her Navel

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Barry Unsworth

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Bundle-Barry Unsworth *Advance Copies

Barry Unsworth

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Barry Unsworth

After Hannibal

Barry Unsworth

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Barry Unsworth

The Songs of the Kings