Angela Carter

Welcome to the official website of late Angela Carter, novelist, poet, short story writer & one of the most original voices in the 20th century English literature.

This website is aimed at the general reader. It contains information on her books, her publishers, how to contact the Estate as well as news about forthcoming reissues, other books and links to interviews and articles.

Eileen Cooper on illustrating Nights at the Circus

The acclaimed British artist talks illustrating her first novel , as The Folio Society releases a new edition of a 20th-century classic resplendent with Eileen’s art.

A tale of love, magic, circuses and lies, Nights at the Circus is now available in a glorious new edition from distinguished publishers The Folio Society. With illustrations by celebrated printmaker Eileen Cooper, the release marks the novel’s first-ever illustrated edition. The book also comes accompanied by an exhibition of Cooper’s work, with an introduction by renowned novelist Sarah Waters.

In our interview, we learn more about Eileen Cooper’s work and vision for the book, including nine original colour lino-cut collages and a monoprint title page spread. All of the pieces perfectly suit Angela Carter’s wildly original storytelling and gorgeously slippery language, and what Waters describes as the author’s unique power to ‘unsettle as well as to inspire and console.’

A Royal Academician, Eileen has credited fairy tales, mythology and the female figure as core inspirations for her work, making her the perfect artist to bring the late Carter’s lush imagery to life. Each illustration is bold, striking, impossible to look away from. The chapter headings feature the ordinary and extraordinary totems of the life story of the half-woman, half-swan Sophie Fevvers. The tale recounts journalist Jack Walser’s quest to expose Sophie as a fraud, but who instead finds himself captivated by her beauty and strangeness, in a book widely regarded as a classic of British literature. (read more)