Oscar and Lucinda

On a slow ship bound for Australia, two gamblers find distraction and solace in a deck of cards. One, Oscar Hopkins, who believes God encourages him to gamble; the other, Lucinda Leplastrier, who is the heiress of a fortune and owner of a glassworks. Together they will make a bet which will change both of their lives forever. Peter Carey is one of the only writers to have twice won the Booker Prize - Oscar and Lucinda was his first book to do so. Both a moving love story and a historical tour de force, his tale of nineteenth-century Australia signaled the arrival of one of the great voices in contemporary literature.