‘We look on past ages with condescension, as a mere preparation for us… but what if we are a mere after-glow of them?’

Krishnapur, 1857: India is on the brink of a violent and bloody mutiny. In this remote town on the vast North Indian plain, life for the British is still orderly and genteel. But when the sepoys at the nearest military cantonment rise in revolt, the British community retreats with shock into the Residency. They prepare to fight for their lives with what weapons they can muster.

As food and ammunition grow short when the British find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion – at once brutal, blundering and wistful – is soon revealed.

‘An idiosyncratic masterpiece, wise and richly comic’ Hilary Mantel

Singapore, 1939: Walter Blackett, ruthless rubber merchant, is head of British Singapore’s oldest and most powerful firm. And his family’s prosperous world of tennis parties, cocktails and deferential servants seems unchanging. No one suspects it – but this world is poised on the edge of the abyss. This is the eve of the Fall of Singapore.

A love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life, The Singapore Grip is a modern classic.

‘A narrative of exceptional imagination and scope’ Newsweek

‘A fine piece of work, informative, funny tragic. One of those novels that present a whole world for the reader to inhabit’ Margaret Drabble

‘No writer has swallowed all of Singapore with the verve and wit of the late J.G. Farrell’ Time

‘His brilliant of style places him beside such masters of the modern novel as Patrick White and Saul Bellow’ Olivia Manning

Soon to be adapted for an ITV television series by the Oscar-winning playwright behind Atonement and Dangerous Liaisons, Christopher Hampton.

Singapore just before the Japanese invasion in the Second World War: the Blackett family’s prosperous world of tennis parties, cocktails and deferential servants seems unchanging. But it is poised on the edge of the abyss: This is the eve of the Fall of Singapore and, as we know, of much else besides.

Not only the Blacketts, their friends and enemies, but many individuals are caught up in the events. Singapore at this historical watershed has never been so faithfully and passionately recreated.

The Siege of Krishnapur is a modern classic of narrative excitement that also digs deep to explore some fundamental questions of civilisation and life.

‘Suspense and subtlety, humour and horror, the near-neighbourliness of heroism and insanity: it is rare to find such divergent elements being controlled in one hand and being raced, as it were, in one yoke. But Farrell manages just this here: his imaginative insight and technical virtuosity combine to produce a novel of quite outstanding quality’ The Times

‘The magnificient passages of action in The Siege of Krishnapur, its gallery of characters, its unashamedly detailed and fascinating dissertations on cholera, gunnery, phrenology, the prodigal inventiveness of its no doubt also well-documented scenes should satisfy the most exacting and voracious reader. For a novel to be witty is one thing, to tell a good story is another, to be serious is yet another, but to be all three is surely enough to make it a masterpiece’ John Spurling, New Statesman

‘A work of genius’ GUARDIAN

‘One of the finest novels of the past 50 years’ MAIL ON SUNDAY

‘Funny, sad and beautifully written; prescient, wise, original and unexpectedly eccentric’ OBSERVER

‘No finer work has ever been written about this transitional period in Irish history: it remains a landmark in 20th-century Irish literature’ IRISH INDEPENDENT

Major Brendan Archer travels to Ireland – to the Majestic Hotel and to the fiancée he acquired on a rash afternoon’s leave three years ago. Despite her many letters, the lady herself proves elusive, and the Major’s engagement is short-lived. But he is unable to detach himself from the alluring discomforts of the crumbling hotel. Ensconced in the dim and shabby splendour of the Palm Court, surrounded by gently decaying old ladies and proliferating cats, the Major passes the summer. So hypnotic are the faded charms of the Majestic, the Major is almost unaware of the gathering storm. But this is Ireland in 1919 – and the struggle for independence is about to explode with brutal force.