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The Giant O'Brien

by Hilary Mantel

London, 1782: center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and the desperately poor. Among whom is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in the old myths. He has come from Ireland to exhibit his size for money. He has, he soon finds, come to die. His opposite is a man of science, the famed anatomist John Hunter. Hunter lusts after the Giant's corpse, a medical curiosity, a boon to the advancement of scientific knowledge.