Review copies of the international best-selling Nick Bantock’s THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH are now available via EDELWEISS and NETGALLEY.

A tapestry of exquisite miniatures, the kind of stories you might hear told in one of Calvino’s invisible cities. Microfictions are seldom this inventive or persistently pleasurable.

—John Coulthart, World Fantasy Award-winning graphic artist, illustrator, author, and designer

I have always been fascinated by artists who manage to invent imaginary creatures and worlds, and Nick Bantock does it with extreme elegance and a unique freshness of sign, managing to combine cave paintings with Flemish art in a contemporary key.

—Daniele Serra, three-time winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist

THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH

by Nick Bantock

ISBN: 978-1-61696-407-8 (print); 978-1-61696-408-5 (digital)

Published: November 2023

Available Format(s): Trade hardcover, digital formats

The internationally bestselling author of Griffin & Sabine returns with his newest literary mystery—a charming assemblage of his own illustrated stories. Each of the invitingly strange tales is paired with its own glyphic creature (perhaps created by Sabine herself?). Each accompanying story, the origin of which is unknown, totals exactly one-hundred words. These delightful “drabbles,” enjoyable in any sequence, allow the reader to bask in them—or even to solve the conundrum they imply.

Little is known of the fascinating manuscript that Nick Bantock has come to possess. It was discovered in an attic in North London, stuffed into a battered cardboard box, and unceremoniously delivered directly to Nick’s doorstep. Inside the package lay one hundred evocatively absurd stories, one hundred humorous drawings of strangely familiar, quirkish glyphs, plus a cryptically poetic note signed only as “HH.” (Possibly the well-known, eccentric billionaire, Hamilton Hasp?)

In these stories-each consisting of precisely 100 words-strange creatures slip through alleyways, and eerie streets swallow people whole. Taken altogether, they may constitute a puzzle that no one has been able to solve thus far. Could there be one missing story?

For those perceptive readers with a curious mind, the celebrated author of Griffin & Sabine cordially invites you to find your own path through his beguiling conundrum of drabbles—or even to contribute one of your very own.