A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

Julian Barnes

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Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Vintage
13 January 2026

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Historical fiction; Fiction: special features

A new, Vintage Classics red spine edition of A History of the World in 10

Chapters, published to celebrate the enduring impact of writing a career that spans almost half a century

History isn't what happened. History is just what historians tell us.

From the Titanic to the Amazon, the raft of the Medusa to an ecclesiastical court in medieval France where a bizarre case is about to begin, A History of the World in 10

Chapters presents a surprising, subversive, fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. Ambitious yet accessible, witty and playfully serious, this is no ordinary history, but something stranger- a challenge and a delight for the reader's imagination.

'Funny, ironic, erudite, surprising, and not afraid to take a dive overboard into the depths of sorrow and loss' Nadime Gordimer

By: Julian Barnes
Imprint: Vintage
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 197mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 282g
ISBN: 9781529972320
ISBN 10: 1529972329
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 13 January 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Julian Barnes is the author of thirteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and Sunday Times bestsellers The Noise of Time and The Only Story. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and three books of non-fiction, including the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life and Nothing To Be Frightened Of, which won the 2021 Yasnaya Polyana Prize in Russia. In 2017 he was awarded the Legion d'honneur.