The book is also sustained by Barnes's affectionate understanding of England's halting commitment both to art and to justice. Arthur & George, rich and immensely readable, perfectly balances radically different characters in a stream of flawless, driving sentences. 'Precise, elegant, enchanting.' -Elle 'Utterly absorbing, beautifully crafted. Intriguing, relentless and, most of all, moving, 'Arthur & George 'richly extends the reach and achievement of a novelist described by the 'Philadelphia Inquirer' as ' a dazzling mind in mercurial flight.'

Ranging from London clubs to teeming prisons, from a lost century to the modern age, this novel is a panoramic revelation of things we thought we knew or else had no clue of, as well as a gripping exploration of what goals drive us toward whatever lies in wait- an experience resounding with issues, no less relevant today, of crime and spirituality of identity and nationality of what we think, what we believe and what we can prove. We follow each through outrageous accusation and unrivaled success, through faith and perseverance and dogged self-recrimination, whether in the dock awaiting complete disgrace or at the height of fame while desperately in love with a woman not his wife, and gradually realize that George is half-Indian and that Arthur becomes the creator of the world's most famous detective.

One falls prey to a series of pranks en route to a legal vocation, while the other studies medicine before discovering a different calling entirely, and it is years before their destinies are entwined in a mesmerizing alliance. In the vast expanse of late-Victorian Britain, two boys come to life: George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, in shabby genteel Edinburgh, both of them feeling at once near to and impossibly distant from the beating heart of Empire.

From one of England's most esteemed novelists, an utter astonishment that captures an era through one life celebrated internationally and another entirely forgotten.

Julian barnes arthur and george review