OVER 4 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE Shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award; longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 'Unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years ... Funny, moving, scary, otherworldly, practical and magical' NEIL GAIMAN The year is 1806. centuries have passed[Bokinfo].