Fingersmith

Shortlisted: The Man Booker Prize 2002
Published by Virago: 4 February 2002

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Sarah Waters offers an intriguing blend of mystery and suspense, secrets and betrayal in her evocative Victorian underworld page-turner

London, 1862. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her ‘family’ of unwanted babies turned artful dodgers - ‘fingersmiths’. When one of Mrs Sucksby’s scams places Sue as a lady’s maid to an orphan-heiress in a sprawling Gothic mansion, the narrative explores even darker corners, among the pinched corsets and rustling skirts of Victorian England.

Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times - in 2002, 2006 and 2009. Her novels have won the Betty Trask Award and the Somerset Maugham Award and have also been shortlisted for the Orange Prize

More about Sarah Waters

Video highlights

Sarah Waters on 'Fingersmith'

An exclusive video interview with Sarah Waters on her 2002 Man Booker Prize shortlisted book ‘Fingersmith’.

Sarah Waters 'Fingersmith' | World Book Night 2013 | HiBrow

The Handmaiden - Official Trailer

In 2016, Korean director Park Chan-wook released The Handmaiden, which was inspired by Fingersmith. The Handmaiden transported the action of the book from Victorian-era Britain to Korea under Japanese colonial rule. Another Gaze said the film was ‘a brilliantly dark ode to women’s desire and autonomy: a subject that remains as pressing today as it was a century ago’.

Fingersmith on screen

In 2016, Korean director Park Chan-wook released The Handmaiden, which was inspired by Fingersmith.

The Handmaiden transported the action of the book from Victorian-era Britain to Korea under Japanese colonial rule.

Another Gaze said the film was ‘a brilliantly dark ode to women’s desire and autonomy: a subject that remains as pressing today as it was a century ago’.

Watch The Handmaiden on Netflix here