The Lady and the Unicorn

Tracy Chevalier

Jan 2004 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Robert Blumenfeld and Terry Donnelly

About this audiobook

A tour de force of history and imagination, The Lady and the Unicorn is Tracy Chevalier’s answer to the mystery behind one of the art world’s great masterpieces—a set of bewitching medieval tapestries that hangs today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They appear to portray the seduction of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown—until now.

Paris, 1490.  A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries celebrating his rising status at Court. He hires the charismatic, arrogant, sublimely talented Nicolas des Innocents to design them. Nicolas creates havoc among the women in the house—mother and daughter, servant, and lady-in-waiting—before taking his designs north to the Brussels workshop where the tapestries are to be woven. There, master weaver Georges de la Chapelle risks everything he has to finish the tapestries—his finest, most intricate work—on time for his exacting French client. The results change all their lives—lives that have been captured in the tapestries, for those who know where to look.

In The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier weaves fact and fiction into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry—an extraordinary story exquisitely told.

About the author

Tracy Chevalier grew up in Washington, DC. She received her BA in English literature from Oberlin College before moving to London in 1984. She later attended the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where she received her MA in creative writing. Her works include The Virgin Blue, The Girl With a Pearl Earring, and Remarkable Creatures.