num_pages: 408
description: Bradley Pearson, an unsuccessful novelist in his late fifties, has finally left his dull office job as an Inspector of Taxes. Bradley hopes to retire to the country, but predatory friends and relations dash his hopes of a peaceful retirement. He is tormented by his melancholic sister, who has decided to come live with him; his ex-wife, who has infuriating hopes of redeeming the past; her delinquent brother, who wants money and emotional confrontations; and Bradley's friend and rival, Arnold Baffin, a younger, deplorably more successful author of commercial fiction. The ever-mounting action includes marital cross-purposes, seduction, suicide, abduction, romantic idylls, murder, and due process of law. Bradley tries to escape from it all but fails, leading to a violent climax, and a coda that casts shifting perspectives on all that has preceded.
language: English
title: The Black Prince
titlecomplete: The Black Prince
characters: Arnold Baffin, Bradley Pearson, Francis Marloe, Julian Belling, Rachel Baffin, Christian Hartbourne
genres: Classics, British Literature, Irish Literature, Philosophy, Modern Classics, Novels, 20th Century, Literature, Literary Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 5744
awards: awardedAt: 94723200000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 94723200000
name: James Tait Black Memorial Prize
category: Fiction
publisher: Penguin Classics