From the author of the international best seller An Instance of the Fingerpost, Arcadia is an astonishing work of imagination. Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. But who controls the future—or the past? In 1960s Oxford, Professor Henry Lytten is attempting to write a fantasy novel that forgoes the magic of his predecessors, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He finds an unlikely confidante in his quick-witted, inquisitive young neighbor Rosie. One day, while chasing Lytten’s cat, Rosie encounters a doorway in his cellar. She steps through and finds herself in an idyllic, pastoral land where Storytellers are revered above all others. There she meets a young man who is about to embark on a quest of his own—and may be the one chance Rosie has of returning home. These breathtaking adventures ultimately intertwine with the story of an eccentric psychomathematician whose breakthrough discovery will affect all of these different lives and worlds. Dazzlingly inventive and deeply satisfying, Arcadia tests the boundaries of storytelling and asks: If the past can change the future, then might the future also indelibly alter the past?
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“With Arcadia, Iain Pears has woven a delightful tapestry in the bold colors of complexity, wonder, and irony, even while offering the careful reader a chance to ferret out numerous literary allusions. Arcadia is filled with satisfying surprises up to the last sentence of its telling.”
— Dan Simmons, bestselling author of The Terror
A fantastical extravaganza…A complex time-travelling, world-hopping caper with insistently epic stakes.”
— GuardianIain Pears is a journalist and art historian with a doctorate in art history from Oxford. He is the author of numerous works, including seven detective novels in the Jonathan Argyll series, a book of art history, and the New York Times bestselling historical novel An Instance of the Fingerpost. He lives in Oxford, England.
Jayne Entwistle is a voice talent and Earphones Award–winning narrator.
John Lee is the winner of numerous Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration. He has twice won acclaim as AudioFile’s Best Voice in Fiction & Classics. He also narrates video games, does voice-over work, and writes plays. He is an accomplished stage actor and has written and coproduced the feature films Breathing Hard and Forfeit. He played Alydon in the 1963–64 Doctor Who serial The Daleks.