My Brilliant Friend: The Four Volumes
Published on 9. October 2025
Book
Hardback
1248 pages
978-1-78770-602-6 (ISBN)
Description
"High stakes, subversive literature."-The Telegraph
When Elena Ferrante set out to write the story of Elena and Lila, she conceived it as one single work of fiction, one expansive novel that would capture the reality and ambivalence of female friendship, motherhood, marriage, class and adolescence.
2025 marks 10 years since publication of the quartet was completed. To celebrate this anniversary, as well as honour and acknowledge the author's original conception, we are releasing the four novels in one volume.
Described by the New Yorker's James Wood as "large, captivating, amiably peopled...a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal," the Neapolitan Quartet tells a poignant, universal story about friendship and belonging.
"The capacity of stories to speak to anyone and in any time is the fruit of a mysterious mixture of sensibility, ability, and luck, and no writer really knows how that fruit ripens and if it has fully matured."-Elena Ferrante
When Elena Ferrante set out to write the story of Elena and Lila, she conceived it as one single work of fiction, one expansive novel that would capture the reality and ambivalence of female friendship, motherhood, marriage, class and adolescence.
2025 marks 10 years since publication of the quartet was completed. To celebrate this anniversary, as well as honour and acknowledge the author's original conception, we are releasing the four novels in one volume.
Described by the New Yorker's James Wood as "large, captivating, amiably peopled...a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal," the Neapolitan Quartet tells a poignant, universal story about friendship and belonging.
"The capacity of stories to speak to anyone and in any time is the fruit of a mysterious mixture of sensibility, ability, and luck, and no writer really knows how that fruit ripens and if it has fully matured."-Elena Ferrante
Reviews / Votes
"An unconditional masterpiece." * Jhumpa Lahiri * "Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy - and the world." * The Sunday Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 181 mm
Thickness: 77 mm
Weight
1627 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78770-602-6 (9781787706026)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), and the four novels known as the Neapolitan Quartet (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) which were published by Europa Editions between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018. Ferrante is also the author of Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey (Europa, 2016), a children's picture book illustrated by Mara Cerri, The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016), and a collection of personal essays illustrated by Andrea Ucini entitled Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019). The Lost Daughter was made into a feature film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman. Her most recent novel is The Lying Life of Adults (Europa, 2020). In the Margins, a collection of original essays on reading and writing, was published by Europa in 2022.
Ann Goldstein has translated into English all of Elena Ferrante's books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Lying Life of Adults and The Story of the Lost Child, which was also shortlisted for the Booker International Prize. She has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York.
Ann Goldstein has translated into English all of Elena Ferrante's books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Lying Life of Adults and The Story of the Lost Child, which was also shortlisted for the Booker International Prize. She has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York.