
Arts and Wonders
- Author:
- Gregory Norminton (one of our writers)
- Type:
- Novel
- Published:
- September 2004
- Publisher:
- Sceptre
- ISBN-13:
- 978-0340821039
About the publication
Arts and Wonders follows Tommaso Grilli, dwarf and talented art forger, from his unhappy beginnings in Renaissance Florence, via a life of crime in Prague, to the minor German Dukedom of Felsengrunde. There, as curator and (more often than not) 'creator' of a fantastical Library of Arts, he makes himself indispensable to the impoverished duke - with whom his own fortunes will be murderously linked.
Reviews
In rich, ripe, robust prose that never cloys, Gregory Norminton's second novel is a panorama of court and corruption to stand comparison with Michael Moorcock's GLORIANA or even the TITUS books of Mervyn Peake. Norminton shares their gift for conveying unease, the hairline crack that will eventually shatter the finest marble ... Sardonic, carnal, intellectual, violent, urbane, ARTS AND WONDERS delves straight back to the origins of the novel ... classic picaresque.
The Guardian