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The Alteration

Kingsley Amis

1976204 pagesabout 3–5 hours
1976
first published
  • 1976Cape · 208 pages · ENGISBN 9780224013055
  • 1977Viking Press · 210 pages · ENGISBN 9780670115228
  • 1978Triad · 205 pages · ENGISBN 9780586044964
  • 2004Penguin Random House · 208 pages · ENGISBN 9780099461081
  • 2013New York Review Books · 231 pages · ENGISBN 9781590176177
  • 1988Penguin · 205 pages · ENGISBN 9780140099522
  • 1988Carroll & Graf Publishers · 204 pages · ENGISBN 9780881844320
  • No further detail recordedISBN 9783453313101

An alternative history novel set in a world in which the Protestant Reformation never took place. Hubert Anvil is a singer in the choir of St. George's Basilica whose life is thrown into chaos when his teachers and the Church hierarchy decree that the boy's voice is too precious to sacrifice to puberty. Despite his own misgivings, he must undergo castration, the alteration of the title, in order to preserve it. Will he escape this turn of fate?

How it feels

Emotional toneIronic
AtmosphereCosmic
HumourWry

How it reads

Character focusSingle lead
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