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The Humble Lover
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Brief Description
A wildly hilarious and irreverent novel about a rich octogenarian and the young ballerino he covets—Edmund White at his funniest and most unrestrained. Aldwych West, an eighty-year-old modern-day aristocrat living alone in his Manhattan townhouse, is used to having what he wants. When he sets eyes...
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The Humble Lover
$3499
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From National Book Award-honored author Edmund White, a wildly hilarious and irreverent novel about a rich older man who falls in love with a young ballerino.
A wildly hilarious and irreverent novel about a rich octogenarian and the young ballerino he covets— Edmund White at his funniest and most unrestrained.
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Description
A wildly hilarious and irreverent novel about a rich octogenarian and the young ballerino he covets—Edmund White at his funniest and most unrestrained.
Aldwych West, an eighty-year-old modern-day aristocrat living alone in his Manhattan townhouse, is used to having what he wants. When he sets eyes on August Dupond, a strong, stunningly beautiful soloist in the New York City Ballet, he decides he must have him.
Soon they strike up a closeness that falls between the blurry lines of friendship, sponsorship, and love, and August moves in with Aldwych. But eventually, August starts bringing home other men, and a formidable woman in Aldwych's circle named Ernestine also takes a deep interest in the young, enchanting star.
Messy entanglements and fierce rivalries ensue, and the result is an unforgettable, outrageous tragicomedy that explores the many layers of love and sexual desire as only Edmund White can.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781639735273
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 09 October 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 140.0mm
Height: 210.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 272
About the Author
Edmund White (1940-2025) authored more than thirty works of fiction, memoir, and nonfiction, including the novels A Boy’s Own Story, Our Young Man, and The Humble Lover; the memoirs City Boy, Inside a Pearl, and The Unpunished Vice; The Flâneur, a tour through Paris; the literary biographies Genet and Rimbaud; and many more. His most recent work, the sexual autobiography The Loves of My Life, was a New York Times Editors' Choice. He received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.
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The Loves of My Life
With his trademark wit, candour, and relentlessly perceptive eye, Edmund White, the beloved 85-year-old ‘paterfamilias of queer literature’ (New York Times), delves unflinchingly into the aspect of his life which has inspired so many of his masterpieces: sex. Documenting everything from covert fumblings in the repressed American Midwest of the 1950s to the Arcadian gay debauchery of New York in...Hardback$4499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Inside a Pearl
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Nocturnes for the King of Naples
The letters of a seducer to the great love of his life, a sensual tour-de-force by 'the paterfamilias of queer literature' (New York Times). 'Can't sleep tonight. Was lying in bed reading the biography of a great man whose genius deserted him...The genius who deserted me was you.' In a series of late-night letters, gorgeous, funny, filled with memory, sensuality,...Paperback$3799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
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WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY ALEXANDER CHEE 'A stylish, deftly erudite and enormously diverting book’ - Sunday Telegraph ‘An artfully aimless pleasure cruise around Paris’ - Guardian 'White's genius as a flâneur is revealed in his affinity for unexpected pleasures, and he includes many for our delectation' - New Yorker A unique and eclectic view of Paris through the eyes...Paperback$2999Unit price /UnavailableOut 4 Aug 2026Pre-order -
A Boy's Own Story
A Boy's Own Story traces an unnamed narrator's coming-of-age during the 1950s. It was his power that stupefied me and made me regard my knowledge as nothing more than hired cleverness he might choose to show off at a dinner party. Beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, the unnamed narrator struggles with his...PaperbackSold Out -
A Previous Life
______________ 'Elegant, filthy – and quite possibly the queerest thing you will read all year.' - Guardian 'Intriguing and inventive.' - Electric Literature, "Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of the Year" 'A dizzyingly enticing and kaleidoscopic take on the spectrum of sexual experiences.' - Publishers Weekly, starred review _____________ A daring, category-confounding, and ruthlessly funny novel from National Book Award honoured...PaperbackSold Out -
Chaos
‘One of the best writers of my generation’ - John Irving ‘One of the three or four most virtuosic living writers of sentences in the English language' - Dave Eggers What happens when a life implodes? When a respected older man, a product of the liberated 1970s, is incapable of cleaning up his act for the twenty-first century? When he...PaperbackSold Out -
Genet
'This biography is elegant, meticulous, and wholly satisfying' — Sunday Telegraph From the author of A Boy's Own Story and The Farewell Symphony 'A superb introduction to the great novelist and playwright, vagabond, thief, and convict, and to the brutal childhood from which he mined his remarkable vision' — J.G. Ballard, Books of the Year, Sunday Times Interviewing lovers, friends,...PaperbackSold Out -
The Married Man
A searingly honest love story told in White's characteristically beautiful, heart-breaking prose. Poignant and challenging... A love story, yet with an ambition and sweep that make it much more than that... subtle, complex, unsparing and profound — Daily Telegraph Austin Smith, a middle-aged American, works out in a Paris gym—an ordinary day, except that he catches the eye of a...PaperbackSold Out
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