'A state-of-the-countryside novel ... rich in detail but vast in scope' FINANCIAL TIMES
'A stunning tale of rural life ... Harrison earns a nod to George Eliot' ALEXANDRA HARRIS, GUARDIAN
'Extraordinary ... Harrison is a nonpareil describer of the natural world' INDIA KNIGHT
'Wonderful ... an Under Milk Wood for the twenty-first century' AMY LIPTROT
'Extraordinary ... The best serious fiction I've read this year' FRANCIS SPUFFORD
A FINANCIAL TIMES AND OBSERVER BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2026
A TIMES BOOK OF THE SUMMER 2026
April brings spring surging with it, giving rise, among many in the village, to a comforting illusion that all is somehow still right with the world, and that nothing will ever change.
In the ancient Welm Valley, something is shifting: the river is behaving oddly, while the arrival of spring, with its familiar rhythms, is shadowed by an undercurrent of unease.
A woman falls while out walking and hopes to be found before nightfall; a doctor realises, too late, that he has long underestimated his wife; across the village, people are plagued by the same vast and unsettling dream. And alone in a converted priory, overlooking watermeadows unchanged for centuries, Clare Grey receives news which will force her to reconsider her family’s past and the fresh weight of her solitary existence.
'Attuned, loving and thoughtful ... I loved its warmth and intricacy' SARAH MOSS
'Nobody does nature better than Melissa Harrison' TRISTAN GOOLEY
'Reminds us with every luminous sentence about the fragile grace of ordinary lives' EVIE WYLD
Genre: Literary Fiction
'A stunning tale of rural life ... Harrison earns a nod to George Eliot' ALEXANDRA HARRIS, GUARDIAN
'Extraordinary ... Harrison is a nonpareil describer of the natural world' INDIA KNIGHT
'Wonderful ... an Under Milk Wood for the twenty-first century' AMY LIPTROT
'Extraordinary ... The best serious fiction I've read this year' FRANCIS SPUFFORD
A FINANCIAL TIMES AND OBSERVER BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2026
A TIMES BOOK OF THE SUMMER 2026
April brings spring surging with it, giving rise, among many in the village, to a comforting illusion that all is somehow still right with the world, and that nothing will ever change.
In the ancient Welm Valley, something is shifting: the river is behaving oddly, while the arrival of spring, with its familiar rhythms, is shadowed by an undercurrent of unease.
A woman falls while out walking and hopes to be found before nightfall; a doctor realises, too late, that he has long underestimated his wife; across the village, people are plagued by the same vast and unsettling dream. And alone in a converted priory, overlooking watermeadows unchanged for centuries, Clare Grey receives news which will force her to reconsider her family’s past and the fresh weight of her solitary existence.
'Attuned, loving and thoughtful ... I loved its warmth and intricacy' SARAH MOSS
'Nobody does nature better than Melissa Harrison' TRISTAN GOOLEY
'Reminds us with every luminous sentence about the fragile grace of ordinary lives' EVIE WYLD
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"I loved the way The Given World is at once warm and clever, meticulously attentive to place, plants and animals while insisting on human grace. Melissa Harrison's prose is strong and lovely as ever." - Sarah Moss
"A truly groundbreaking novel, setting the day-to-day rhythms of rural life against troubling and sinister shifts in nature's calendar. Melissa Harrison's forensic portrayal of the village and its residents - wild and human, old and new - deserves a place at the very heart of the English post-pastoral canon." - Stephen Moss
"The Given World is a village symphony, the finest work yet by a writer in her prime, she animates whatever she focuses on, characters live, we see them, we know them. The novel roams around the village, from one inhabitant to another, each one described with great warmth and psychological acuity, during a year when the seasons are in turmoil. Characters' relations to each other coexist with the interconnecting nature around them, while beneath everything builds a dread that changes are building, too enormous to face head on." - Tim Pears
"A brilliantly acute social portrait of English rural life now. The best piece of serious fiction I've read this year. Extraordinary ... An elegy for the death of the English countryside and also a beautiful demonstration of how a piece of realist literary fiction can subtly borrow from the fantastic, weaving in threads of the mythic and the unearthly that enrich the this-worldly sense the book is making." - Francis Spufford
"A novel that reminds us with every luminous sentence about the fragile grace of ordinary lives. I can't think of a writer better at evoking the English countryside in all of its strange beauty." - Evie Wyld
"A truly groundbreaking novel, setting the day-to-day rhythms of rural life against troubling and sinister shifts in nature's calendar. Melissa Harrison's forensic portrayal of the village and its residents - wild and human, old and new - deserves a place at the very heart of the English post-pastoral canon." - Stephen Moss
"The Given World is a village symphony, the finest work yet by a writer in her prime, she animates whatever she focuses on, characters live, we see them, we know them. The novel roams around the village, from one inhabitant to another, each one described with great warmth and psychological acuity, during a year when the seasons are in turmoil. Characters' relations to each other coexist with the interconnecting nature around them, while beneath everything builds a dread that changes are building, too enormous to face head on." - Tim Pears
"A brilliantly acute social portrait of English rural life now. The best piece of serious fiction I've read this year. Extraordinary ... An elegy for the death of the English countryside and also a beautiful demonstration of how a piece of realist literary fiction can subtly borrow from the fantastic, weaving in threads of the mythic and the unearthly that enrich the this-worldly sense the book is making." - Francis Spufford
"A novel that reminds us with every luminous sentence about the fragile grace of ordinary lives. I can't think of a writer better at evoking the English countryside in all of its strange beauty." - Evie Wyld
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