The unforgettable, award-winning debut novel and modern classic from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Life After Life and Shrines of Gaiety.

'Delivers its jokes and its tragedies as efficiently as Dickens...outrageously funny...will dazzle readers for years to come' - HILARY MANTEL, bestselling author of Wolf Hall

Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty and born while her father, George, was in the Dog and Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn't married.

Bunty had never wanted to marry George, but here she was, stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster, with her children - sensible and sardonic Patricia aged five, greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored, and Ruby...

In Behind the Scenes at the Museum, young Ruby tells the story of ‘The Family’, from the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail beautiful Alice and her children, to the startling, witty, and memorable events of Ruby's own life.

Praise for Behind the Scenes at the Museum, winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year:

'An astounding book...without doubt one of the finest novels I have read for years' The Times

'Little short of a masterpiece...Fizzing with wit and energy, Kate Atkinson's hilarious novel made me laugh and cry' Daily Mail

‘A really gripping, emotionally satisfying family saga written with warmth and wit. I've re-read it countless times.’ Red

‘A debut novel of astonishing confidence and skill...Acutely observant, overflowing with good jokes, it is the work of an author who loves her characters and sets them playing with gleeful energy’ Spectator

‘Written so fluently and wittily that I sailed through it as though blown by an exhilarating wind… It lifted my spirits enormously. I loved it.’ Margaret Forster

Prizes

Winner of Whitbread Book Awards: Book of the Year 1995,Winner of Whitbread Book Awards: First Novel Category 1995,Winner of Whitbread Prize (First Novel) 1995

Delivers its jokes and its tragedies as efficiently as Dickens...outrageously funny on almost every page...will dazzle readers for years to come. -- Hilary Mantel * London Review of Books *
A debut novel of astonishing confidence and skill...Acutely observant, overflowing with good jokes, it is the work of an author who loves her characters and sets them playing with gleeful energy * Spectator *
An astounding book...without doubt one of the finest novels I have read for years * The Times *
Little short of a masterpiece...Fizzing with wit and energy, Kate Atkinson's hilarious novel made me laugh and cry * Daily Mail *
A blinding debut from a Yorkshire mother-of-two who could be Alan Bennett's baby sister...straight-up simplicity veils the depth, poignancy and poetry of her story * Time Out *
A first novel written so fluently and wittily that I sailed through it as though blown by an exhilarating wind; a first novel with a touch so light I only felt its truth and sadness after I'd finished it. It lifted my spirits enormously. I loved it. -- Margaret Forster
Enchanting. It hops with sprightly omniscence from past to future and back again * The Sunday Times *
A really gripping, emotionally satisfying family saga written with warmth and wit. I've re-read it countless times. * Red *

KATE ATKINSON is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Life After Life, an acclaimed BBC TV series, won several prizes including the Costa Novel Award, as did A God in Ruins. Two further historical novels – Transcription and Shrines of Gaiety - were also Sunday Times bestsellers. She has published two critically acclaimed collections of short stories: Not the End of the World and Normal Rules Don’t Apply.

Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC television series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel Big Sky and the most recent, Death at the Sign of the Rook, was a number one bestseller.

Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in 2011 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

For information about Kate’s books, including her Jackson Brodie series, visit www.kateatkinson.co.uk