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Tracy Chevalier
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Girl with a Pearl Earring, Deluxe Edition Paperback – Deckle Edge, August 30, 2005

by Tracy Chevalier (Author, Foreword)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 6,969 ratings
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    233 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Books
  4. Publication date
    August 30, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    5.65 x 0.71 x 8.38 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0452287022
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0452287020
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Deluxe edition (August 30, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 233 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0452287022
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0452287020
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.65 x 0.71 x 8.38 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 6,969 ratings

About the author

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Tracy Chevalier

Tracy Chevalier

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Tracy is the author of 10 novels, including the international bestseller GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, which has sold over 5 million copies and been made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. American by birth, British by geography, she lives in London with her husband and son. Her latest novel, A SINGLE THREAD, tells the story of an English woman between the Wars who forges an independent life in Winchester. Tracy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has honorary doctorates from her alma maters Oberlin College and the University of East Anglia. Her website www.tchevalier.com will tell you more about her and her books.

Photo: Nina Subin

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
6,969 global ratings
CHEVALIER, TRACY...GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING...ALL TIME FAV!
5 Stars
CHEVALIER, TRACY...GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING...ALL TIME FAV!
One of my all time favorite novels! Favorite novel that I have read by Tracy Chevalier. Griet life alters dramatically after meeting the painter, Vermeer! Great movie too! Highly recommend this book and to my surprise when I was in Italy, a street artist painted the pic below on the street! Couldn't put the book down...great recommendation from a friend!
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Top reviews from the United States

Jessica
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2024
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I have read this book at least 4 times, and gave it many times as a gift as well. The writer creates beautifully detailed visual effects with words. The characters and art come to life in this story.
One person found this helpful
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Stacey Rae
4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyment
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2022
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I like how the author creates the possibilities of how some of Vermeers paintings may have been created. She illustrates in your minds eye how paintings can be and are looked at from another perspective. The family life and era is described in interesting detail. A very good read that leaves you with a smile upon completion:)
11 people found this helpful
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Ratmammy
5.0 out of 5 stars A step into history and the world of 17th century art
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2002
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Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Inspired by a painting by Dutch artist Vermeer, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING is a fictional account of how this famous painting came to be. Just as Johannes Vermeer painted this anonymous girl back in the 1660's, author Tracy Chevalier painted a beautiful picture of the world of 17th century Holland and the world of this young girl who eventually becomes the subject of one of his paintings.
Ms Chevalier's story starts with the introduction of Griet, a young teenage girl who lives with her parents and younger sister in a very humble home in the town of Delft. She is helping chop vegetables in their kitchen when her parents receive a visit from two stately looking guests. Griet finds out soon enough that this couple is Johannes Vermeer the painter, and his lovely wife Catharina. Johannes notices how Griet is separating the vegetables by color and his observation does not go unnoticed by Griet. This first brief encounter between them is the spark that starts their new "relationship".
Griet learns then that she is expected in a few days to start working for the Vermeers as their maid. Griet's father is no longer able to work due to an accident he had on the job, and now it is up to Griet to help the family out. Her older brother has already left home, and is learning to make a living at what their father used to do: Make tiles.
A few days later, Griet is living with the Vermeer's and their children and servants. They live lavishly for these times, and Griet soon becomes accustomed to her new life. She returns on weekends to visit her family, but she has to stay with the Vermeers during the workweek.
Griet has many duties as a maid, including doing the laundry and helping out with the children. She slowly bonds with the children, all except Cornelia, who seems to be a trouble maker and tries her best to get Griet into trouble with her parents. This becomes especially evident when, for some reason, Johannes decides to make Griet his assistant, on top of all the duties Griet has to perform as their maid. Because of Catharina's jealousies, his wife is not to know about this special role that Griet was about to play in the house. With the help of Catharina's mother, Griet finds ways to secretly help Johannes "grind" his colors and do other necessary things to help him prepare for painting, in the hopes that Catharina doesn't find out.
Griet falls in love with his paintings, and with him. And soon, all she can think about is him. Since she is now his special assistant, she is privy to his private world of painting, a world that even Catharina is not allowed to trespass. Through the eyes of Griet the reader sees how Vermeer created his beautiful works of art, using a creation that was the forerunner of today's camera. A new world opens up for Griet. Because of this, Griet also knows that she is headed towards danger of losing her job.
GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING in my opinion was a literary work of art. Maybe I was heavily influenced by the cover, which depicts the actual painting of this girl that Vermeer made famous back in the 17th century. Regardless of the reason, I personally enjoyed this fictional tale of the creation of one of Holland's most famous paintings of the renaissance era.
12 people found this helpful
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Lawrance Bernabo
5.0 out of 5 stars Chevalier makes up a story behind the Vermeer painting
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2004
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I read "Girl With a Pearl Earring" because I was so enthralled by the 2003 film adaptation directed by Peter Webber from a script by Olivia Hetreed. When I saw the movie I was impressed by its visual elements but now that I have real Tracy Chevalier's novel I am really impressed by Hetreed's screenplay. Usually when I am inspired to read a novel after I see a film it is to get more of the story, thinking that less than half of what is in the book has made it to the screen. That is most decidedly not the case with "Girl With a Pearl Earring."
Johannes Vermeer's 1665 oil on canvas painting, which hangs in The Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis in The Hague, is considered one of his masterworks. It is a portrait of a young girl, wearing a turban and a pearl earring, looking over her shoulder, her lips parted slightly, set against a black background. But if you are familiar with Vermeer's body of work, most of which represented the corner of his studio in which he worked, then clearly "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is an atypical work. This painting has raised a series of questions ever since it was rediscovered in 1882: Was the pearl real? What is she wearing a turban? Was the painting intended to be a portrait? Nothing is known about whom Vermeer used as his model, so the biggest question of all is Who was the girl in the painting?
Chevalier answers all of these questions, and more, by creating a young girl named Griet. After her father, a tile maker, is blinded in a kiln accident Griet is sent to work cleaning in the house of Vermeer in the Dutch city of Delft. She is Protestant and the Vermeers are Catholic, which adds another element of strangeness to the young girl when she moves into the house. Vermeer's wife, Catharina, is about to deliver another baby, and Griet is to help with the household work. But she is also given the job of cleaning the master's studio, where she faces the daunting task of cleaning the objects on display without moving them from their position.
Griet is a smart girl, which for some may well be the Achilles heel in the conceit spun by Chevalier since they may well conclude that neither Greit's education nor her experiences would allow her to come up with the deep thoughts she has at critical points in the narrative. But that intelligence is necessary to the story Chevalier wants to tell and the foundation for everything that follows is Griet's common sense conclusion that cleaning the widow's in Vermeer's studio will change the light that falls on his subjects.
"Girl with a Pearl Earring" is about the art of painting and we learn, through Griet's eyes, something of Vermeer's technique, especially with his use of the camera obscura. But it is also something of a love story, in that Griet cannot help but be smitten with the man who ends up painting her portrait, even if the thought that something might actually happen between them never really enters her mind. For a time, in Chevalier's story, Griet serves as a muse of inspiration for a great painter who produced a true masterpiece.

This is not a true story. Most of the characters really lived and you can travel to the Netherlands and see the actual painting, but Chevalier's answer to all of the questions swirling around Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" are only creative speculations. Yet in the final analysis Chevalier achieves the ultimate level that author's aspire to when they tell such tales in that we wish that this was indeed a true story. Chevalier makes Griet as memorable as the painting she inspires in this 2000 novel.
On the back of the my copy of this novel author Deborah Moggach, author of "Tulip Fever," says that she read Chevalier's story with a book of Vermeer's paintings beside me. I read "Girl with a Pearl Earring" after not only seeing the movie but after checking out all of Vermeer's paintings online, so that when Chevalier talks about the paintings "Woman with a Pearl Necklace" and "The Concert" I was able to visualize them. I wish that reproductions of those paintings had been included in this novel as well as the cover picture of the titular artwork, the same way I wish that I could see the paintings and architecture that matter in Dan Brown's novels. Since you can easily find a couple of excellent websites with Vermeer's artwork I would strong recommend that even if you have also seen the movie, that you be able to have the same advantage as Griet and be able to study these great paintings.
26 people found this helpful
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AshevilleChicken
3.0 out of 5 stars I think it’s kinda cheesy
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2023
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I found it to be a not greatly researched historical novel. The characters were difficult to sympathize with. A few foundational aspects of the plot were so unlikely that it just seems so made up.

I have read other historical fiction about real people and enjoyed them very much. I have felt like I learned something about the time and maybe gained a new perspective on the human experience. I almost guarantee that neither of those things will happen when you read this book.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Reclamação
Reviewed in Brazil on June 4, 2021
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Pedido veio em duplicidade e COBRANÇA também
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francesca fiorucci
5.0 out of 5 stars Libro La ragazza con l'orecchino di perla
Reviewed in Italy on September 10, 2023
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Libro consigliato
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ABC
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in France on July 28, 2023
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one of the best books I have ever read.
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Berenice
5.0 out of 5 stars Hermosa pintura con historia
Reviewed in Mexico on January 24, 2021
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Había visto la película pero siempre me queda con la duda del final, con el libro me aclaran todo, la novela es entretenida y sirve para practicar el inglés.
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Michel Wapler
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in Canada on November 7, 2018
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Romantic but convincing fiction around the famous Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer. Worth reading even if you have seen the movie with Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. Makes one want to visit Delft and the Mauritius Huis in Den Haag (The Hague) where the painting of the title is displayed.
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