Last Stories

'What a writer he was; he could flip over a sentence so gently, and showthe underbelly in a heartbeat. His work is always quietly compassionate' Elizabeth Strout 
 
In this final collection of ten exquisite, perceptive and profound stories, William Trevor probes into the depths of the human spirit. Here we encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet again years later; a young girl who discovers the mother she believed dead is alive and well; and a piano-teacher who accepts her pupil's theft in exchange for his beautiful music. These gorgeous stories - the last that Trevor wrote before his death - affirm his place as one of the world's greatest storytellers. 
 
'Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling' Hilary Mantel 
 
'He is one of the great short-story writers, at his best the equal of Chekhov' John Banville 
 
'The greatest living writer of short stories in the English language' New Yorker

None but those with a complete mastery of fiction can walk this line. William Trevor was not "an Irish Chekhov" or even "the Irish Chekhov". He was and will remain the Irish William Trevor

10 stories bring a literary career that lasted more than half a century to a consummate conclusion

William Trevor's prose runs as clear as water yet tastes like gin

Extraordinary stories from ordinary lives

One of the great contemporary chroniclers of the human condition, in all its pathos, comedy and strangeness. As a writer he looked at the world with an always surprised but never scandalised eye, and his writer's heart was with those awkward and obscurely damaged souls who cannot quite manage the business of everyday life - all of us, that is

There are those rare, exceptional writers who are fortunate enough (like their readers) to burn bright and steady over many decades, expressing the same creative clarity at the end of their careers as they did at the beginning. William Trevor was one of those writers

We honor him as the supreme master of his honest art

In the first few paragraphs of a story he could set an entire scene without seeming to, working on details, small moments, odd thoughts. As in the work of Alice Munro, there often seemed to be very little happening in his fiction, but then he was capable of offering the reader a sense of an immense drama

His stories are formally beautiful and, at the same time, interested in the smallness of human lives. He was, as a writer, watchful, unsentimental, alert to frailty and malice. A master craftsman

Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling

He is one of the great short-story writers, at his best the equal of Chekhov

The strength of all his writing was an unshowy perfection of style, through which he expressed his unerring instinct for fairness. His total lack of self-importance allowed him to express what was important in the world around him. He was one of the greatest writers about justice and suffering, disguised as an ordinary person

A beautiful writer... I would not have become a writer at all had I not discovered his work.

The man - the work - was brilliant, elegant, surprising, reliable, precise, stark, often sad, sometimes funny, shocking and even frightening

There is no better short story writer in the English-speaking world

Writers often get asked which authors they return to again and again, their comfort books if you will, the ones that make them remember why fiction matters. William Trevor, I have answered on countless occasions. His stories. Any of them

He is, I think, sui generis, and in his 12 collections (and 13 novels, and two novellas: an exhibition of near-Updikean energy), he has created a version of the short story that almost ignores the form's hundred or so years of intricate evolution. These stories stay in the mind long after they're finished because they're so solid, so deliberately shaped and directed so surely toward their solemn, harsh conclusions

William Boyd, reviewing Cheating at Canasta in the 'New York Times'

A posthumous collection of stories by the Irish writer reflects his formidable craft

What you might call Trevor's parting shots are as robustly vivid and potent, as wistful and emotionally rigorous, as his more youthful oeuvre

William Trevor, master of the short story, was at the top of his game in his final decade

William Trevor's short fiction was the stuff of legend

Trevor's prose style is effortless, elegant and economical, but manages to contain the most  hugely difficult feelings: jealousy, guilt and yearning regret

An Irish writer, an international writer, a great writer. Put bluntly, he is revered by writers

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland, in 1928. He is the author of fourteen much-lauded novels: he won the Whitbread Prize three times and was short-listed for the Booker Prize four times. Trevor was widely recognized to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the English language. In 1999 William Trevor received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement, and in 2002 he was awarded an honorary knighthood for his services to literature. He died in 2016.

In this final collection of ten exquisite, perceptive and profound stories, William Trevor probes into the depths of the human spirit. Here we encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet again years later; a young girl who discovers the mother she believed dead is alive and well; and a piano-teacher who accepts her pupil's theft in exchange for his beautiful music. These gorgeous stories - the last that Trevor wrote before his death - affirm his place as one of the world's greatest storytellers.

Felicia's Journey

*WINNER OF THE WHITBREAD BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD* 
 
*WINNER OF THE SUNDAY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD * 
 
From acclaimed author William Trevor, Felicia's Journey is a tightly woven psychological thriller 
 
'A book so brilliant that it compels you to stay up all night galloping through to the end' Daily Mail 
 
You're beautiful, Johnny told her. 
 
So, full of hope, seventeen-year-old Felicia crosses the Irish Sea to England to find her lover and tell him she is pregnant. Desperately searching for Johnny in the bleak post-industrial Midlands, she is instead found by Mr Hilditch, a strange and lonely man, a collector and befriender of homeless young girls . . . 
 
'Immensely readable. The plot twist is both sinister and affecting, and so skilfully done that you remember why authors had plot twists in the first place' Guardian 
 
Readers of The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer will adore Felicia's Journey. It will also be cherished by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. 
 
William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature.

A book so brilliant that it compels you to stay up all night galloping through to the end

Immensely readable.  The plot twist is both sinister and affecting, and so skillfully done that you remember why authors had plot twists in the first place

Immaculately calculated.  Trevor's cunning is to lull us with inertia so that we are as startled as his characters when the faint air of menace turns into a tempest

Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling.  this sinister, elegant, piercingly sad novel is surely one of the books of the year

A masterpiece.  You read and are dazzled.  It has one of the most memorable and convincing, most sinister and terrifying of characters created in the modern novel

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written many novels, and has won many prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. His most recent novel Love and Summer was longlisted for the Booker Prize. He is also a renowned writer of short stories, and his two-volume Collected Stories was published by Viking Penguin in 2009. In 1999 William Trevor received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement, and in 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature.

'You're beautiful,' Johnny told her and so, full of hope, seventeen-year-old Felicia crosses the Irish Sea to England to find her lover and tell him she is pregnant. Desperately searching for Johnny in the bleak post-industrial Midlands, she is, instead, found by Mr Hilditch, a strange and lonely man, a collector and befriender of homeless young girls... Felicia's Journey is a compelling psychological thriller, tense and unsettling.

Cheating at Canasta

Cheating at Canasta - an outstanding collection of stories by the master storyteller William Trevor 
 
'There is no better short story writer in the English-speaking world' Wall Street Journal 
 
''No matter what,' Julia had said, aware then of what was coming, 'let's always play cards.' And they did; for even with her memory gone, a little more of it each day - her children taken, her house, her flowerbeds, belongings, clothes - their games in the communal drawing room were a reality her affliction allowed.' 
 
A husband sits in Harry's Bar in Venice, thinking of his wife - lost to him now - whose plea has brought him back to one of their favourite haunts. On another table, a young couple quarrel. 'Cheating at Canasta' is the title story of William Trevor's collection, his first since the highly acclaimed A Bit on the Side, and its themes of missed opportunities, the inevitability of change and the powerful but fragmentary quality of our memories are entirely characteristic of his unparalleled oeuvre.

'No matter what,' Julia had said, aware then of what was coming, 'let's always play cards.' And they did; for even with her memory gone, a little more of it each day - her children taken, her house, her flowerbeds, belongings, clothes - their games in the communal drawing room were a reality her affliction allowed. 
 
A husband sits in Harry's Bar in Venice, thinking of his wife - lost to him now - whose plea has brought him back to one of their favourite haunts. On another table, a young couple quarrel. 'Cheating at Canasta' is the title story of William Trevor's new collection, his first since the highly acclaimed A Bit on the Side (2004), and its themes of missed opportunities, the inevitability of change and the powerful but fragmentary quality of our memories are entirely characteristic of his unparalleled oeuvre.

The Story of Lucy Gault

Shortlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize 
 
'A masterwork. I doubt that I have read a book as moving in at least a decade. A homage to the redemptive power of love' Independent 
 
Summer, 1921. Eight-year-old Lucy Gault clings to the glens and woods above Lahardane - the home her family is being forced to abandon. She knows the Gaults are no longer welcome in Ireland and that danger threatens. Lucy, however, is headstrong and decides that somehow she must force her parents into staying. But the path she chooses ends in disaster. One chance event, unwanted and unexpected, will blight the lives of the Gaults for years to come and bind each of them in different ways to this one moment in time, to this wild stretch of coast . . . 
 
'Flawless. Guaranteed to keep you reading - all through the night if necessary - to find out what happens. Trevor's best novel' New Statesman 
 
'Dark, elegantly written ... a book to relish' Independent on Sunday

Stark yet tender, without a single false note.  There will be only a handful of novels worth reading this year (or any year) . . . this book is certainly one

Flawless . . . not a single word seems out of place.  Guaranteed to keep you reading - all trhough the night if necessary - to find out what happens.  Trevor's best novel

Striking, throughtful.  Written with grace and finesse and charged throughout with a persuasive disquiet

Dark, elegantly written . . . a book to relish

A masterwork.  I doubt that I have read a book as moving in at least a decade.  A homage to the gift of redemptive love

Summer, 1921. Eight-year-old Lucy Gault clings to the glens and woods above Lahardane - the home her family is being forced to abandon. She knows the Gaults, as Protestants, are no longer welcome in Ireland and that danger threatens. She is headstrong and decides that somehow she must force her parents into staying. But the path she chooses ends in disaster. 
 
One chance event, unwanted and unexpected, will blight the lives of the Gaults for years to come and bind each of them in different ways to this one moment in time forever. Trevor's novel, shortlisted for both the Booker and Whitbread Prizes, beautifully evokes rural Ireland and the tensions existing there, but also delicately portrays the terrible impact of mere chance on our lives.

Reading Turgenev & My House in Umbria

Two Lives

Two Lives: Reading Turgenev &amp; My House in Umbria - two novels by William Trevor 
 
'Evocative and haunting. Trevor writes like an angel, but is determined to wring your heart' Daily Mail 
 
'Marvellous, superb. As rich and moving as anything I have read in years. When I reach the end . . . I wanted to start right again at the beginning' Guardian 
 
In Reading Turgenev an Irish country girl is trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man, but finds release through secret meetings with a man who shares her passion for Russian novels. 
 
My House in Umbria tells of Emily Delahunty, a writer of romantic novels, who helps the survivors of a bomb attack on a train to convalesce, inventing colourful pasts for her patients. 
 
Two novels, two women who retreat further into the realm of the imagination until the boundaries between what is real and what is not become blurred . . . 
 
'One of the most beautiful and memorable things Trevor has written' Independent on Sunday 
 
Reading Turgenev was shortlisted for the Booker Prize

As rich and moving as anything I have read in years.  When I reached the end of both of these marvellous novels, I wanted to start right again at the beginning

These novels will endure.  And in every beautiful sentence there is not a word out of place

Inquisitive and loving.  Trevor's is among the most subtle and sophisticated fiction being written today

A writer at the peak of his powers; it reminds you what good reading is all about

Reading Turgenev is one of the most beautiful and memorable things he has written. It stays in your memory -like Turgenev

He writes like an angel, but is determined to wring your heart.  Trevor at his most evocative and haunting

Two beautiful, memorable novels in one volume, both focussing on women who retreat into their imaginations until the boundaries between what is real and what is not become blurred. 
 
In 'Reading Turgenev', an Irish country girl is trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man. But she finds unusual solace - in secret meetings with a man who shares her passion for Russian novels. This novella was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. 
 
The second story, 'My House in Umbria' tells how romantic novelist Emily Delahunty helps the survivors of a bomb attack on a train and invents colourful pasts for her patients.

After Rain

After Rain - Twelve remarkable stories by the master storyteller William Trevor 
 
'There is no better short story writer in the English-speaking world' Wall Street Journal 
 
In this collection of twelve dazzling, acutely rendered tales, William Trevor plumbs the depths of the human heart. Here we encounter a blind piano tuner whose wonderful memories of his first wife are cruelly distorted by his second; a woman in a difficult marriage who must choose between her indignant husband and her closest friend; two children, survivors of divorce, who mimic their parents' melodramas; and a heartbroken woman traveling alone in Italy who experiences an epiphany while studying a forgotten artist's Annunciation. 
Trevor is, in his own words, 'a storyteller. My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so.' Conscious or not, he touches us in ways that few writers even dare to try.

A remarkable collection of twelve new stories,mostly set in Ireland,which was greeted with universal acclamation when published in hardcover in 1996. The title story is a small, sad masterpiece, about a woman holidaying alone in an Italian hotel. 
 
&quot;A dazzling collection of short stories&quot; SUNDAY TIMES

William Trevor

A fabulously benign book ... a work of sympathetic magic

I can't think of anything I've read recently that has chronicled more accurately the thumping chaos of human hearts or felt more questioning and youthful and alive

It is summer and a stranger has come to quiet Rathmoye. He is noticed by Ellie, the young convent girl, who is married to Dillahan, a farmer still mourning his first wife. Over the long and warm days, Ellie and the stranger form an illicit attachment. And those in the town can only watch, holding their tongues, as passion, love and fate take their inevitable course.

Love and Summer

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William Trevor

Praise for Love and Summer

A fabulously benign book ... a work of sympathetic magic

I was totally entranced ... a rare book

I can't think of anything I've read recently that has chronicled more accurately the thumping chaos of human hearts or felt more questioning and youthful and alive

A fabulously benign book ... a work of sympathetic magic

I was totally entranced ... a rare book

I can't think of anything I've read recently that has chronicled more accurately the thumping chaos of human hearts or felt more questioning and youthful and alive

A fabulously benign book ... a work of sympathetic magic

I was totally entranced ... a rare book

I can't think of anything I've read recently that has chronicled more accurately the thumping chaos of human hearts or felt more questioning and youthful and alive

Books by William Trevor

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