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A reissue with a new introduction to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters's wonderfully lush, sensuous and bawdy debut novel set in the music halls of the late 19th century.
Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.
Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins.
Author: Sarah Waters
Paperback Published 15 April 1999 480 pages
'Erotic and absorbing . . . Written with startling power' -New York Times Book Review