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The Transit of Venus

The richly evocative modern classic

Shirley Hazzard

$24.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English
Virago Press Ltd
22 January 2026
'One of the great English-language novels of the twentieth century' PARIS REVIEW

'The Transit of Venus is astronomical: as sharp, remote and dazzling as a celestial body' LAUREN GROFF

'A wonderfully mysterious book . . . unforgettably rich' ANNE TYLER

'A wonderfully mysterious book . . . unforgettably rich' GEOFF DYER

The tragedy is not that love doesn't last. The tragedy is the love that lasts.

Two sisters, Caroline and Grace Bell, leave Australia to begin a new life in post-war England. Courted long and hopelessly by young scientist, Ted Tice, strong-willed Caro is to find that love brings both betrayal and hope. The milder Grace seeks fulfilment in an apparently happy marriage. But as the decades pass and their paths weave and cross across the world - from Sydney to London, New York to Stockholm - two slow-burning secrets wait in ambush for them.

Shirley Hazzard's breathtaking masterpiece is an intricately plotted Greek tragedy, a sweeping family saga, and a desperate love story.
By:  
Imprint:   Virago Press Ltd
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 194mm,  Width: 128mm,  Spine: 26mm
Weight:   294g
ISBN:   9780349020907
ISBN 10:   0349020906
Series:   Virago Modern Classics
Pages:   368
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Shirley Hazzard (1931-2016) was born in Australia and travelled the world during her early years, a result of her parents' diplomatic postings. In 1947, at the age of sixteen, she was engaged by British intelligence to monitor the civil war in China. At twenty, she moved to New York, working for the United Nations throughout much of the 1950s, which included a posting to Naples. Muriel Spark introduced her to the translator and biographer Francis Steegmuller, whom Hazzard married in 1963. Her novels The Bay of Noon (1971) and The Transit of Venus (1981) were National Book Award finalists, while her last novel, The Great Fire, won the 2003 National Book Award, Miles Franklin Award and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She was also the author of two collections of short stories, and several works of nonfiction including the memoir Greene on Capri.

Reviews for The Transit of Venus: The richly evocative modern classic

An immense, involving love story . . . written with Hazzard's characteristic precision, attention to detail and culture * Country and Town House *


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