Little: a Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year

The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud. 

In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an...
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The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud. 

In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do.

Exuberant and utterly distinctive, Little recalls a momentous stretch of French history through the eyes of Marie Groscholtz, who survives the harshest of beginnings and most violent of revolutions to craft her place in history. 

Little is a stunning artefact of a novel; a wonderfully grisly reimagining of the life and times of Madame Tussaud. Carey weaves a tale of heartfelt sympathy and jet-black humour; eccentric oddity and utter enchantment. 

Dickensian in style with an unforgettable cast of characters, Little is a masterpiece for modern times.