Servants of the Map

Andrea Barrett

Mas 2012 · HarperCollins UK

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A national hardback bestseller in the US – another magnificently imagined and executed book of historical fiction with a contemporary twist, from one of the masters of the form. ‘These stories possess a wonderful clarity and ease, the serene authority of a writer working at the very height of her powers.' New York Times

Ranging across two centuries, and from the western Himalayas to an Adirondack village, Servants of the Map travels the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery.

A mapper of the highest mountain peaks, engaged on the trigonometrical measurement of British India, realizes his true obsession while in deflationary correspondence with his far-off wife. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett’s most characteristic theme – the happenings in that borderland between science and desire – unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings.

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ANDREA BARRETT, currently a Fellow at the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers, grew up on Cape Cod and graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, where she studied biology. In addition to five novels, she has also written a previous collection of short fiction, Ship Fever. Recently named a MacArthur Fellow, she lives with her husband in Rochester, New York.