Overview

A propulsive tour through a fantastical London, where history and myth collide, murder stalks the streets and the mundane becomes very magical indeed… The year is 1949, the city London. Amidst the smog of the capital is Dennis Knuckleyard, a hapless eighteen-year-old employed by a second-hand bookshop. One day, on an errand to acquire books for sale, Dennis discovers a novel that simply does not exist. It is a fictitious book, a figment from another novel. Yet it is physically there in his hands. How? Dennis has stumbled on a book from the Great When, a magical version of London beyond time and space, where reality blurs with fiction and concepts such as Crime and Poetry are incarnated as wondrous, terrible beings. But this other, magical London must remain a secret: if Dennis cannot find a way to return this book to where it belongs, he risks bizarre and disastrous repercussions, such as his body being turned inside out (or worse). So begins a journey delving deep into the city’s occult underbelly and tarrying with an eccentric cast of sorcerers, gangsters, and murderers – some from legend, some all too real, and all with plans of their own. Soon Dennis finds himself at the centre of an explosive series of events that may alter and endanger both Londons forever. Thrilling, lyrical and sparkling with dark humour, The Great When is the first book in a new series by Sunday Times-bestseller and icon, Alan Moore. 'A breathless time-travelling classic. Savage, humane, comic, terrifying' Iain Sinclair ‘Brilliant and so powerfully imaginative’ Adam Curtis 'A weird book and a complete joy' Mariana Enríquez ‘A masterful step from one of our very best, uncompromising storytellers; Moore peels back the layers of London and reveals not only the history we know, but the histories that could have been, and, underneath it all, both the dark and beautiful truths about who we are as a nation.’ Heather Parry

Full Product Details

9781526643223

Table of Contents

Reviews

PRAISE FOR ALAN MOORE: '[Alan Moore] is the Shakespeare of the comic book' * Daily Telegraph * PRAISE FOR ALAN MOORE: Here is an author who possesses a mastery of language teamed with a seemingly limitless imagination, all underpinned by a sanguine, occasionally waspish sense of humour * Financial Times * Like Dickens, Alan Moore has us waiting on the dock, impatient for the next installment of his breathless, time-travelling classic. A preternaturally convincing hallucination from London's fetid past transports us, in some mysterious way, over the abyss of our impoverished post-digital present. Savage, humane, comic, terrifying: and that's just the first page. Now read on. -- Iain Sinclair

PRAISE FOR ALAN MOORE: '[Alan Moore] is the Shakespeare of the comic book' * Daily Telegraph * PRAISE FOR ALAN MOORE: Here is an author who possesses a mastery of language teamed with a seemingly limitless imagination, all underpinned by a sanguine, occasionally waspish sense of humour * Financial Times * Like Dickens, Alan Moore has us waiting on the dock, impatient for the next installment of his breathless, time-travelling classic. A preternaturally convincing hallucination from London's fetid past transports us, in some mysterious way, over the abyss of our impoverished post-digital present. Savage, humane, comic, terrifying: and that's just the first page. Now read on. -- Iain Sinclair A profound, gorgeous novel of secret magics and lost souls -- Sunyi Dean, Sunday Times Bestselling author of THE BOOK EATERS

PRAISE FOR ALAN MOORE: '[Alan Moore] is the Shakespeare of the comic book' * Daily Telegraph * PRAISE FOR ALAN MOORE: Here is an author who possesses a mastery of language teamed with a seemingly limitless imagination, all underpinned by a sanguine, occasionally waspish sense of humour * Financial Times *

A profound, gorgeous novel of secret magics and lost souls -- Sunyi Dean, Sunday Times Bestselling author of THE BOOK EATERS PRAISE FOR ALAN MOORE: '[Alan Moore] is the Shakespeare of the comic book' * Daily Telegraph * PRAISE FOR ALAN MOORE: Here is an author who possesses a mastery of language teamed with a seemingly limitless imagination, all underpinned by a sanguine, occasionally waspish sense of humour * Financial Times *

Author Information

Alan Moore is an English writer widely regarded as the best and most influential writer in the history of comics. His seminal works include From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He is also the author of the bestselling Jerusalem. He was born in Northampton, and has lived there ever since.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available