Sarah Waters: On the Brothers Grimm and Victorian Sex

Send us Fan MailSarah Waters racy Victorian picaresque, Tipping the Velvet, was published in 1998, and garnered huge attention and praise. It was adapted by the BBC  in 2002, a genuine television event that coincided with the publication of her third novel, Fingersmith, a heart-stopping gothic thriller — again with a lesbian couple at its center. Fingersmith was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the first of three novels to achieve the distinction, the others being The Night Watch and The Little Stranger, a spine chiller that Stephen King anointed the best book he read in 2009. She has said: It’s interesting that I’ve become known as a feminist writer; we tend to think of feminism as being about women breaking out of old models, and finding new ways of living but I’m really much more drawn to writing about the limitations on women’s lives, because I think I’m interested in the fact that most people in life do feel rather limited and there is something rather tragic about the way in which we don’t really realize our great hopes and desires. That’s the sort of stuff that draws me as a writer more than anything else.”