Named a Best Historical Novel of 2024 by The Sunday Times, The Independent, and BookPage
A Parade and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of June
‘This charming fable is at once a love story that skips through six centuries, and also a love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking. Chevalier probes the fierce rivalries and enduring loyalties of Murano's glass dynasties, capturing the roar of the furnace, the sweat on the skin, and the glittering beauty of Venetian glass.’ – Geraldine Brooks, author of Horse
From the bestselling historical novelist, a rich, transporting story that follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day.
It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass—but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes.
Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure.
Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is as inventive as it is spellbinding: a mesmerizing portrait of a woman, a family, and a city as everlasting as their glass.
Genre: Historical
A Parade and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of June
‘This charming fable is at once a love story that skips through six centuries, and also a love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking. Chevalier probes the fierce rivalries and enduring loyalties of Murano's glass dynasties, capturing the roar of the furnace, the sweat on the skin, and the glittering beauty of Venetian glass.’ – Geraldine Brooks, author of Horse
From the bestselling historical novelist, a rich, transporting story that follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day.
It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass—but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes.
Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure.
Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is as inventive as it is spellbinding: a mesmerizing portrait of a woman, a family, and a city as everlasting as their glass.
Genre: Historical
Praise for this book
"Chevalier, one of our great storytellers, brings us unexpected worlds: Venice and Murano, artisans and empresses, compelling us through six fascinating centuries, with one irresistible family, weaving stories that captivate and transport the reader." - Amy Bloom
"This charming fable is at once a love story that skips through six centuries, and also a love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking. Chevalier probes the fierce rivalries and enduring loyalties of Murano's glass dynasties, capturing the roar of the furnace, the sweat on the skin, and the glittering beauty of Venetian glass." - Geraldine Brooks
"A richly-drawn tale about loyalty and heartbreak, as well as a love letter to the craftsmen--and women--who created exquisite treasures that endure through the ages. A stunning achievement. I couldn't put it down." - Fiona Davis
"Tracy Chevalier returns to the world of medieval craft and gives us another determined heroine--a Venetian glassmaker who penetrates the closed world of the men of Murano. Meticulously researched and evoking the beauty of the Venice lagoon, the story challenges and transports the reader through time and place." - Philippa Gregory
"In the Venice of The Glassmaker, time moves differently, with hundreds of years passing in the blink of an eye....When one has the chance to live for centuries, love and loss seem to cut more deeply, and the winds of change never stop blowing, which means that the ground is constantly shifting beneath the feet of Chevalier's perfectly drawn characters. Inspiring, heartbreaking, and magical, The Glassmaker is an inventive and extraordinary feat and an epic for the ages." - Kristin Harmel
"A triumph... a brilliant idea carried out with confidence and brio and a deep love of an extraordinary city. The ingenuity of the time-skipping is beyond admiration." - Philip Pullman
"Tracy Chevalier pens a novel as ambitious, audacious, and artistic as a Venetian glass goblet. Beginning in the height of the Renaissance and hopscotching with casual ease through the centuries to the modern day, she examines the ever-changing city of Venice through the eyes of Orsola Rosso, defiantly gifted daughter of a Murano glassmaking family, and how her unique gift with glass shines through time, fragile but unbreakable. The Glassmaker is a thing of beauty." - Kate Quinn
"Spellbinding... Chevalier at her fabulous best. A rich, vivid and gently enchanting novel." - Elif Shafak
"This charming fable is at once a love story that skips through six centuries, and also a love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking. Chevalier probes the fierce rivalries and enduring loyalties of Murano's glass dynasties, capturing the roar of the furnace, the sweat on the skin, and the glittering beauty of Venetian glass." - Geraldine Brooks
"A richly-drawn tale about loyalty and heartbreak, as well as a love letter to the craftsmen--and women--who created exquisite treasures that endure through the ages. A stunning achievement. I couldn't put it down." - Fiona Davis
"Tracy Chevalier returns to the world of medieval craft and gives us another determined heroine--a Venetian glassmaker who penetrates the closed world of the men of Murano. Meticulously researched and evoking the beauty of the Venice lagoon, the story challenges and transports the reader through time and place." - Philippa Gregory
"In the Venice of The Glassmaker, time moves differently, with hundreds of years passing in the blink of an eye....When one has the chance to live for centuries, love and loss seem to cut more deeply, and the winds of change never stop blowing, which means that the ground is constantly shifting beneath the feet of Chevalier's perfectly drawn characters. Inspiring, heartbreaking, and magical, The Glassmaker is an inventive and extraordinary feat and an epic for the ages." - Kristin Harmel
"A triumph... a brilliant idea carried out with confidence and brio and a deep love of an extraordinary city. The ingenuity of the time-skipping is beyond admiration." - Philip Pullman
"Tracy Chevalier pens a novel as ambitious, audacious, and artistic as a Venetian glass goblet. Beginning in the height of the Renaissance and hopscotching with casual ease through the centuries to the modern day, she examines the ever-changing city of Venice through the eyes of Orsola Rosso, defiantly gifted daughter of a Murano glassmaking family, and how her unique gift with glass shines through time, fragile but unbreakable. The Glassmaker is a thing of beauty." - Kate Quinn
"Spellbinding... Chevalier at her fabulous best. A rich, vivid and gently enchanting novel." - Elif Shafak
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