A modern tale of sexual mores and city life, Edward Docx’s brilliant debut is a witty novel of spurned lovers, elaborately planned seduction, plotted revenge, and surprising secrets. Jasper Jackson is a rapacious heartbreaker who is greatly overdue for a reckoning. He is also a passionate, charming, sophisticated young Londoner, well versed in life’s finer enjoyments—art and wine, great food and engaging friendships—who happens to eke out his stylish existence in the improbable vocation of calligraphy. While working on a commission to transcribe the love poetry of John Donne, he glimpses an alluring woman in the courtyard outside his window. Madeleine is in every way his match—sexy, intelligent, and, above all, elusive. But his mission to seduce her marks the start of his unraveling. A contemporary comedy of manners for fans of Nick Hornby or Julian Barnes, The Calligrapher dazzles with its acute observations about truth and deceit in the eternal battle of love.