书名：Fingersmith 指匠情挑/荆棘之城 

作者：Sarah Waters 

出版社名称：Riverhead Books 

出版时间：2002 

语种：英文 

ISBN：9781573229722 

商品尺寸：13.1 x 3.2 x 20.3 cm 

包装：平装 

页数：608 （以实物为准）

Fingersmith《指匠》（又叫《荆棘之城》），是英国现代作家萨拉·沃特斯的作品。作者透过描写维多利亚时代的窃贼文化，编织出结构严谨的历史悬疑小说，她擅于刻画人心幽微复杂的面貌、营造谍对谍的紧绷张力和神秘氛围，令人不忍释卷，因而受到了非凡肯定。全书笔调幽暗诡谲、情节峰回路转，绝对会带给读者一场难忘的阅读飨宴。 2005年，Fingersmith《指匠》被BBC拍摄成迷你剧《指匠情挑》。 推荐理由： 1.“维多利亚三部曲”之一，BBC英剧《指匠情挑》原著； 2.获“历史犯罪小说匕首奖”，入围“布克奖”“柑橘奖”； 3.获《卫报》《观察家报》《泰晤士报》等一系列媒体盛赞。 媒体评论： “气氛紧张、步调完美、节奏巧妙、令人惊奇的罕见佳作。” ——《周日邮报》 “漫长、黑暗、扭曲又令人满足；绝佳的作品，令人难忘的经验。” ——《曼彻斯特卫报》 “完美无暇的风格与令人愉悦的想象本领，如蛛网般结构繁复。” ——《每日电讯报》 “天衣无缝的情节布局。” ——《观察家日报》 “一旦打开就无法合上的书。” ——《英国时报》

Review “Deliciously brazen…a smart and seductive enchantment.” —Los Angeles Times “Oliver Twist with a twist… Waters spins an absorbing tale that withholds as much as it discloses. A pulsating story.” —The New York Times Book Review“Astonishing narrative twists.” —Newsday “Superb storytelling. Fingersmith is gripping; so suspenseful and twisting is the plot that for the last 250 pages, I read at breakneck speed.” —USA Today“A deftly plotted thriller…absorbing and elegant.” —EntertainmentWeekly “A marvelous pleasure…Waters’s noted attention to historical detail and her beautifully sensitive dialogue help to anchor the force-five plot twisters.” —TheWashingtonPost “Calls to mind the feverishly gloomy haunts of Charlotte and Emily Brontë… Elaborate and satisfying.” —TheSeattleTimes“A sweeping read.” —TheBostonGlobe

在伦敦郊区的一个大庄园内，居住着李先生和他的外甥女莫德，李先生性格乖戾，驱使莫德终日在图书室里整理和朗读藏书。可怜的姑娘从小到大都未踏出过庄园一步，过着暗无天日的生活。 某日，一位陌生人的闯入给莫德干涸已久的心灵带来生机，他就是来教莫德画画的里弗斯，可他的真实身份竟然是一个贼，他听说莫德有四万英镑的嫁妆，便想出骗婚这条生财之道。 为了确保成功，里弗斯又找来盗窃团伙里的苏打下手，经过安排，苏成为莫德的贴身女仆。在一步步精心策划下，事情如里弗斯所期望的方向发展，但很快急转直下，原来一切都非苏想象的那般简单，十几年前就开始精心酿造的大阴谋在等待所有的人，一个晴天霹雳般的真相已呼之欲出。 一部反转又反转的哥特式悬疑，一部充满十九世纪珍闻的纯文学，一部洋溢着生命体验的女性书写。阴谋浩荡，而希望蠢动；骗局迷离，而爱欲丰盛。 Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a “baby farmer,” who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home. One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals

萨拉·沃特斯，1966年出生于英国威尔士，文学博士。三度入围“布克奖”，两度入围“莱思纪念奖”。曾获“贝蒂·特拉斯克文学奖”“毛姆文学奖”。被《星期日泰晤士报》评为“年度青年作家”（2000）、文学杂志《格兰塔》选为“20位当代zui好的青年英语作家”之一（2003）、“英国图书奖”评为“年度作家”（2003）等，文学评论界称其为“当今活着的英语作家中会讲故事的作家”。 Sarah Waters is the New York Times–bestselling author of The Paying Guests, TheLittleStranger, The Night Watch, Fingersmith, Affinity, and TippingtheVelvet. She has three times been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, has twice been a finalist for the Orange Prize, and was named one of Granta’s best young British novelists, among other distinctions. Waters lives in London.

My name, in those days, was Susan Trinder. People called me Sue. I know the year I was born in, but for many years I did not know the date, and took my birthday at Christmas. I believe I am an orphan. My mother I know is dead. But I never saw her, she was nothing to me. I was Mrs Sucksby’s child, if I was anyone’s; and for father I had Mr Ibbs, who kept the locksmith’s shop, at Lant Street, in the Borough, near to the Thames. This is the first time I remember thinking about the world and my place in it. There was a girl named Flora, who paid Mrs Sucksby a penny to take me begging at a play. People used to like to take me begging then, for the sake of my bright hair; and Flora being also very fair, she would pass me off as her sister. The theatre she took me to, on the night I am thinking of now, was the Surrey, St George’s Circus. The play was Oliver Twist. I remember it as very terrible. I remember the tilt of the gallery, and the drop to the pit. I remember a drunken woman catching at the ribbons of my dress. I remember the flares, that made the stage very lurid; and the roaring of the actors, the shrieking of the crowd. They had one of the characters in a red wig and whiskers: I was certain he was a monkey in a coat, he capered so. Worse still was the snarling, pink-eyed dog; worst of all was that dog’s master—Bill Sykes, the fancy-man. When he struck the poor girl Nancy with his club, the people all down our row got up. There was a boot thrown at the stage. A woman beside me cried out, “Oh, you beast! You villain! And her worth forty of a bully like you!” I don’t know if it was the people getting up—which made the gallery seem to heave about; or the shrieking woman; or the sight of Nancy, lying perfectly pale and still at Bill Sykes’s feet; but I became gripped by an awful terror. I thought we should all be killed. I began to scream, and Flora could not quiet me. And when the woman who had called out put her arms to me and smiled, I screamed out louder. Then Flora began to weep—she was only twelve or thirteen, I suppose. She took me home, and Mrs Sucksby slapped her. “What was you thinking of, taking her to such a thing?” she said. “You was to sit with her upon the steps. I don’t hire my infants out to have them brought back like this, turned blue with screaming. What was you playing at? ” She took me upon her lap, and I wept again. ‘There now, my lamb,’ she said. Flora stood before her, saying nothing, pulling a strand of hair across her scarlet cheek. Mrs Sucksby was a devil with her dander up. She looked at Flora and tapped her slippered foot upon the rug, all the time rocking in her chair—that was a great creaking wooden chair, that no-one sat in save her—and beating her thick, hard hand upon my shaking back. Then, “I know your little rig,’ she said quietly. She knew everybody’s rig. ‘What you get? A couple of wipers, was it? A couple of wipers, and a lady’s purse? ”