The Emperor of All Maladies
A Biography of Cancer
Published on 4. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-0-00-881110-5 (ISBN)
Description
WINNER OF THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2011
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2011
'Profound, eloquent and searching'
SUNDAY TIMES
'Essential reading'
INDEPENDENT
'Masterly'
GUARDIAN
'Extraordinary'
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, audacious and now more urgent than ever in this vast update, The Emperor of All Maladies is a masterpiece.
The story of cancer is a human one - a tale of chance discoveries, seized opportunities and human endurance. From innovative early surgeries to the Curies' ultimately tragic work with radiation; from Sidney Farber's hugely risky discovery of chemotherapy to the author's treatment of his own patients, The Emperor of All Maladies is a profound and revelatory portrait of an enigmatic disease humans have lived with, and perished from, for more than five thousand years.
In this updated edition of Siddhartha Mukherjee's instant classic, four new chapters reveal what has changed in the universe of cancer in the years since the book was first published. With moving eloquence, he offers an insight into our evolving understanding of cancer's causes and the emerging, revolutionary new treatments that might shape its future, including those that Mukherjee himself has helped devise.
'This elegantly written overview allows us to look a once whispered-about illness squarely in the eye'
INDEPENDENT
'The notion of "popular science" doesn't come close to describing this achievement. It is literature'
OBSERVER
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2011
'Profound, eloquent and searching'
SUNDAY TIMES
'Essential reading'
INDEPENDENT
'Masterly'
GUARDIAN
'Extraordinary'
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, audacious and now more urgent than ever in this vast update, The Emperor of All Maladies is a masterpiece.
The story of cancer is a human one - a tale of chance discoveries, seized opportunities and human endurance. From innovative early surgeries to the Curies' ultimately tragic work with radiation; from Sidney Farber's hugely risky discovery of chemotherapy to the author's treatment of his own patients, The Emperor of All Maladies is a profound and revelatory portrait of an enigmatic disease humans have lived with, and perished from, for more than five thousand years.
In this updated edition of Siddhartha Mukherjee's instant classic, four new chapters reveal what has changed in the universe of cancer in the years since the book was first published. With moving eloquence, he offers an insight into our evolving understanding of cancer's causes and the emerging, revolutionary new treatments that might shape its future, including those that Mukherjee himself has helped devise.
'This elegantly written overview allows us to look a once whispered-about illness squarely in the eye'
INDEPENDENT
'The notion of "popular science" doesn't come close to describing this achievement. It is literature'
OBSERVER
Reviews / Votes
Praise for The Emperor of All Maladies:'A riveting book ... Profound, eloquent and searching' Sunday Times
'Masterly ... at the same time an encyclopedic history of scientific progress against history and a ripping yarn' Guardian
'The notion of "popular science" doesn't come close to describing this achievement. It is literature' Observer
'The book that many will have been waiting for. This elegantly written overview allows us to look a once whispered-about illness squarely in the eye' Independent
'So beautifully written; this is literature, not popular science' Evening Standard
'Mukherjee never condescends, yet he manages to write lucidly and tellingly about complex experimental, technological and theoretical matters' Will Self, New Statesman
'Powerful and ambitious ... One of the most extraordinary stories in medicine' New York Times Book Review
'What a story - full of quixotic characters, therapeutic triumphs and setbacks, and recent historical events - with all the hubris and pathos of Greek tragedy' Washington Post
'It's hard to think of many books for a general audience that have rendered any area of modern science and technology with such intelligence, accessibility, and compassion' New Yorker
'Mukherjee brings an impressive balance of empathy and dispassion to this instantly essential piece of medical journalism' Time
'Now and then a writer comes along who helps us fathom both the intricacies of a scientific specialty and its human meaning. Lewis Thomas, Sherwin Nuland, and Oliver Sacks come to mind. Add to their company Siddhartha Mukherjee' Elle
'Rich and engrossing ... With the perceptiveness and patience of a true scientist, [Mukherjee] begins to weave these individual threads into a coherent and engrossing narrative' Economist
'A meticulously researched, panoramic history ... [Mukherjee] imbues decades of painstaking laboratory investigation with the suspense of a mystery novel and urgency of a thriller' Boston Globe
More details
Edition
Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Edition type
Revised edition
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 177 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 47 mm
Weight
495 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-881110-5 (9780008811105)
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
Other editions
Additional editions
Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Emperor of All Maladies
E-Book
02/2011
Fourth Estate Ltd
€16.70
Available for download
Person
Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author of The Song of the Cell, The Gene: An Intimate History and The Laws of Medicine. He is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, the University of Oxford and Harvard Medical School. In 2023, he was elected as a new member of the National Academy of Medicine. His work has been published in Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker, among others.