Books & Poetry

Diane Setterfield’s debut novel caused quite a stir when it was bought, after a protracted auction, for £800,000 here and $1 million in the US, so it’s a neat coincidence that it has as its subject the value of books. And also their cost – Setterfield’s two protagonists are a reclusive bestselling novelist, hollowed out by a lifetime dealing in fictions and now close to death; and the daughter of an antiquarian bookseller who has been cloistered all her life in the paper universe of her father’s shop, where a single rare volume can pay the family bills for a year, but where truth is a long-lost treasure. When the archetypal writer, Vida Winter, summons her ideal reader, Margaret Lea, to her isolated manor house and begins the untold tale of her secret provenance, we are promised  a narrative that will be truly special.

It’s a tough promise to keep, but though ‘The Thirteenth Tale’ is not going to change your life, it does turn out to be a real treat.Like all the best first novels, this one seems to bulge with a lifetime’s hoarded inspirations. Setterfield litters the book with references to nineteenth-century gothic literature and other meta-textual winks and nudges. The effect is of a lit-crit parlour game, which only adds to the fun. I don’t know whether it was worth £800,000, but it’s not a bad deal at £12.99.