Sarah Waters

Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen. A saucy, sensuous and multi-layered historical romance, Tipping the Velvet follows the glittering career of Nan King - oyster girl turned music-hall star turned rent boy turned East End 'tom'. It launched the career of one of Britain's most exciting and successful writers. `One of the best storytellers alive today' - Independent. Sarah Waters has written five subsequent bestselling novels, all of which have been filmed or are currently in production and she has received critical and popular acclaim and prize shortlists. She was awarded the Stonewall Writer of the Decade in 2016. Tipping the Velvet was adapted by Andrew Davies and filmed by Sally Head Productions for the BBC

Tipping the Velvet

🎠

‘When I see her,’ I said, ‘it’s like — I don’t know what it’s like. It’s like I never saw anything at all before. It’s like I am filling up, like a wine-glass when it’s filled with wine. I watch the acts before her and they are like nothing — they’re like dust. Then she walks on the stage and — she is so pretty; and her suit is so nice; and her voice is so sweet… She makes me want to smile and weep, at once. She makes me sore, here.’ I placed a hand upon my chest, upon the breast-bone. ‘I never saw a girl like her before. I never knew that there were girls like her…’ 

I felt as if my admiration for Kitty Butler had lit a beacon inside me, and opening my unguarded mouth had sent a shaft of light into the darkened room, illuminating all.

But I know she saw me in my box, for I felt her eyes upon me, sometimes, as she sang; and always, when she left the stag, there was that sweep of her hat for the hall, and a nod, or a wink, or the ghost of a smile, just for me.

If she might! I nodded and smiled like an idiot: for the thrill of being addressed by her I would gladly have lost all of my old name, and taken a new one, or gone nameless entirely.

I had the same sensation: a pang of disappointment and regret that turned instantly to pleasure and to aching love; a desire to touch, to embrace and caress, so strong I had to turn aside or fold my arms for fear that they would fly about her and press her close.

Tipping the Velvet quotes

Join the club