Imprint: Jonathan Cape
Published: 06/02/2020
ISBN: 9781787330832
Length: 224 Pages
Dimensions: 262mm x 28mm x 210mm
Weight: 1003g
RRP: £18.99
The entrancing story of the Brontë sisters' childhood imaginary world, from the New York Times bestselling graphic novelist.
Four children: Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne have invented a world so real and vivid that they can step right into it. But can reality be enough, when fiction is so enticing? And what happens to an imaginary world when its creators grow up?
Plots are spiralling, characters are getting wildly out of hand, and a great deal of ink is being spilt...
Welcome to Glass Town.
Imprint: Jonathan Cape
Published: 06/02/2020
ISBN: 9781787330832
Length: 224 Pages
Dimensions: 262mm x 28mm x 210mm
Weight: 1003g
RRP: £18.99
A wild journey: an odyssey… A feat of narrative concision that is by turns dreamy, and gritty. If it’s a fantastic comic – and I think that it is – then it’s also one of the best books about the Brontës’ juvenilia ever written.
A brilliant, bonkers tribute to the Brontës… Isabel Greenberg has done something extraordinary… Glass Town works so well because while the Brontës’ own story is absolutely devastating, the Glass Town scenes are full of fun… They made their world for the sheer pleasure of making, and that pleasure radiates off Greenberg’s pages too.
Oh, this is good… [Glass Town] is a wonderfully moving exploration of the line between creator and creation. And mortality and immortality, for that matter. It is also another reminder that Greenberg is one of the most singular and imaginative graphic novelists we have.
The weird and wonderful world of the Brontës is brought to life in beautiful, blazing colour… A wonderful book. Greenberg is impressively well-informed about the Brontës, but handles her facts lightly, allowing full power to the beautiful and sensitive images… It’s strange how moving these images are.
[A] beautifully drawn graphic novel… From the vivid artwork to a story as poignant and touching as it is witty, this is an artful, inventive and deeply moving mash-up of fact and fiction.
Magical… Greenberg’s illustrations are wonderful – witty, uncanny, melancholy and funny, brilliantly capturing the creativity of the hugely gifted Brontës.
Glass Town is a vivid historical fiction following the lives of the Brontë family… [Greenberg] gracefully moves in and out of the Brontë dreamworld… Glass Town might provide a kind of meta-escapism for a moment in time when many of us feel that fiction is brighter than reality.
Glass Town is a book to savour, a captivating mash-up of fact and fantasy, with something wonderful on every page. I loved it.
An ingenious intertwining of real life and make believe, Glass Town explores the Brontës’ creative impulse and its effect on their lives. It is the perfect combination of clever, crazy, and just a tiny bit creepy, and will appeal to anyone who has wondered about how imagination shapes us, as well as to card-carrying Brontë fans.
The Brontës' early stories of fantastical worlds...have been inventively brought to life in this beautiful new graphic novel. There's a poignant edge to the escapism.