Nocturne with Gaslamps

Matthew Francis is Professor Emeritus in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. He read English at Magdalene College, Cambridge University. He writes novels, short stories, and poetry collections. He has won the TLS / Blackwell's Prize for Poetry and the Southern Arts Literature Prize, and been shortlisted twice for the Forward Prize, twice for the Welsh Book of the Year Award and once for the Ted Hughes Award. In 2004, he was chosen as one of the Next Generation Poets. He is a Fellow of the Welsh Academy. Matthew lives with this wife in Aberystwyth, Wales where he enjoys playing chess, cooking and playing the ukulele.

'The quality of its writing and the exhilarating absurdity and comedy of its plot: a Victorian theatrical melodrama on the page' Historical Novel Society'Nocturne With Gaslamps is a beguiling, hugely imaginative mystery that brings to life the gaslit world of late Victorian London. Matthew Francis' new novel takes us close to the burners and the light shows, the wonder and the danger of a newly-lit theatre scene, and the secret lives of those who hold the flames. But where there's a lamp there are shadows, and what's lurking in the darkness of the city's night is wonderfully strange. A sparkling romp that surprises and delights.' Katherine Stansfield, author of The Magpie Tree and Falling Creatures