This unputdownable novel is set against a richly authentic backdrop of 1840s Cambridge. The Maiden Faust presents a new and startlingly original take on the Faust legend made famous by Marlowe, Goethe and Mann. The retelling, which uses contemporary voices, updates their preoccupations with a focus on technology, gender, and mental health: a feminist Faust for our times. In this forceful female-centred narrative the ageing scholar of the Gothic myth is replaced by Philippa Austen, a Cambridge undergraduate in an alternative Victorian England where alchemy holds sway. After Philippa encounters the unearthly Martha Stowfell (Mephistopheles), she strikes a bargain to unpick the threads of her dark history - but at what cost? The author, Conor Farrington adds: 'I wrote the book over the course of a decade, crystallising my engagement with a legend that has fascinated me since childhood. In writing The Maiden Faust, I wanted to explore timeless themes of selfhood, knowledge, and the disastrous liberation of unchecked ambition through a lens that is both deeply personal and sharply relevant to our current era. At the same time, it was crucial to me that this retelling be a feminist one, giving voice to perspectives traditionally sidelined in the myth's history. I hope readers find in this novel not just a reflection of our times, but a provocative questioning of where we may be heading.'
