All Souls

Javier Marias's darkly humorous Oxford novel, new to Penguin Modern ClassicsThe pretty young tutor Clare Bayes attracts many eyes at an Oxford college dinner, not least those of a visiting Spanish lecturer (desperate to escape his conversation with an obese economist about an eighteenth-century cider tax). As they begin an affair, meeting in hotel bedrooms away from the eyes of Clare's husband, the Spaniard finds himself increasingly drawn into the strange world of Oxford, 'one of the cities in the world where the least work gets done', in a story of lust, loneliness, vanity and memory. Filled with brilliant set pieces and pin-sharp observation, All Souls is a masterpiece of black humour.

“Probably the wittiest novel set in British academia since David Lodge's Changing Places”

A dazzling example of the Oxford novel, with all the ingenuity and the humour and the nostalgia we could hope for The Times Literary Supplement
Probably the wittiest novel set in British academia since David Lodge's Changing Places Daily Mail
An intelligent and well written book with exceptionally funny set pieces The Indepdent on Sunday

Javier Marias was born in Madrid in 1951 and died in 2022. He published fifteen novels, three collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into forty-three languages and has won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He held academic posts in Spain, the United States and in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University.

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