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The Sense of an Ending
  • Published: 13 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529972313
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $28.00

The Sense of an Ending

The classic Booker Prize-winning novel

Formats & editions
Paperback
13 Jan 2026
Paperback
1 Mar 2012
EBook
1 Aug 2011
Paperback
3 Apr 2017
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A new, Vintage Classics red spine edition of the Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sense of an Ending, published to celebrate the enduring impact of writing a career that spans almost half a century

We live in time - it holds us and molds us - but I never felt I understood it very well.

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, Tony Webster and Adrian Finn swore to stay friends for life. Now in middle age, a lawyer’s letter proves that Tony’s memory may be imperfect. The story of one man coming to terms with the mutable past, The Sense of an Ending is laced with Julian Barnes’ trademark precision, dexterity and insight, and won him the Booker Prize for Fiction in 2011.

‘A precise, poignant portrait of the costs and benefits of time passing, of friendship, of love. A small masterpiece’ Erica Wagner, The Times
  • Published: 13 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529972313
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $28.00
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About the author

Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes is the author of thirteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and Sunday Times bestsellers The Noise of Time and The Only Story. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and three books of non-fiction, including the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life and The Man in the Red Coat, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Duff Cooper Prize. In 2017 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur.

portrait photo of Julian Barnes

Also by Julian Barnes

The Man in the Red Coat
The Only Story
Death
Keeping an Eye Open
Elizabeth Finch
The Noise of Time
Levels of Life
See all

Praise for The Sense of an Ending

An extremely moving, a precise book about the imprecision of memory and how it constructs people, stories and histories.

Alasitair Bruce, Guardian

Intriguing and engaging.

David Robb, Daily Express

It is a monumental novel capturing the struggle of art and the artist under the hand of totalitarianism.

Julia Atherley, Palatinate

A masterpiece... I would urge you to read - and re-read - The Sense of an Ending

Daily Telegraph

Mesmerising... the concluding scenes grip like a thriller - a whodunit of memory and morality

Independent

A very fine book, skilfully plotted, boldly conceived... Barnes has achieved...something of universal importance

Justin Cartwright, Observer

A precise, poignant portrait of the costs and benefits of time passing, of friendship, of love. A small masterpiece

Erica Wagner, The Times

A wonderful story that is all too human and all so real

Irish Times

From the moment that we hear from the woodworm which snuck aboard Noah’s ark to the final pages of the novel, Barnes interrogates moral dilemmas and motivations. These tales could easily be read is isolation, but are much better when consumed as a whole.

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