The Newton Letter

The Newton Letter - Paperback

$15.95
Sale price  $15.95 Regular price 
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The Newton Letter

The Newton Letter - Paperback

by John Banville
$15.95
Sale price  $15.95 Regular price 

Book Overview

"Powerful."--The New York Times, Notable Book of the Year

An unforgettably elegant tale of obsession and the fragile line between reason and desire.

In this compact literary gem, an historian retreats to a quiet cottage in rural Ireland to complete a biography of Isaac Newton. Why, he must unravel, did Newton suffer a mental collapse in 1693, and why did he write such a strange letter to his friend John Locke--hinting at a personal and philosophical crisis?

But as the summer days drift by, work is stalled as he becomes obsessed with the lives of the people around him--stranded Charlotte; doomed, drunken Edward; mysterious Ottilie. The more he tries to decipher the mysterious web of their lives--even while trying to decipher the central mystery of Newton's--he becomes undone by the murky, unmeasurable forces of the human heart.

Banville's prose is lyrical and precise, and The Newton Letter is both a meditation on genius and a portrait of quiet unraveling. A must-read for fans of psychological fiction and literary elegance.
ISBN9781567928495
Author John Banville
PublisherDavid R. Godine Publisher
GenreLiterature
FormatPaperback
PublishedMarch 2026
LanguageENG- English
Pages96
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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About John Banville

JOHN BANVILLE, the author of numerous novels, has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Nonino International Prize, a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He lives in Dublin.

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