A Closed Eye

First edition. Crown 8vo. Pp. 255, [1 (blank)]. Grey cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; pale grey endpapers. Jacket design by Peter Dyer, featuring detail from View above Montreux, c.1880, by John William Inchbold (Victoria & Albert Museum).

The eleventh novel by the author of the Booker Prize-winning Hotel du Lac (1984). A tale of a flawed heroine who long settled into a marriage of convenience is finally stirred into a late romance and personal awakening when she gives vent to her unspoken feelings for her late friend's widower. Highly regarded as a stylist, Brookner's novels explore themes of emotional loss and feature subjects leading quiet lives of muted introspection. "Anita Brookner has staked out a distinctive territory... and made it clear that she is one of the finest novelists of her generation." –The New York Times