A New York Times Notable BookMeet Sugar, a nineteen-year-old prostitute in Victorian London who yearns for escape to a better life. From the brothel of the terrifying Mrs. Castaway, she begins her ascent through society. Beginning with William Rackham, a perfume magnate whose lust for Sugar soon begins to smell like love, she meets a host of lovable, maddening, unforgettable characters as her social rise is overseen by assorted preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all kinds. Named a Best Book of the Year by: People, Entertainment Weekly, and The Chicago Tribune."Gorgeous.... Colossal, kaleidoscopic... Capable of rendering the muck of a London street amid the delicate humming-bird flights of thought with equal ease." -Time"Ambitious and accomplished...nothing could have prepared readers for the sweep and subtlety of The Crimson Petal and the White."—The New York Times Book Review"Tell[s] a good story grippingly and colorfully.... An old-fashioned page-turner with pleasingly newfangled twists."—The Washington Post Book WorldMichel Faber's work has been published in twenty countries and received several literary awards. He lives in Scotland.