The richly evocative modern classic
The award-winning literary masterpiece of Shirley Hazzard - the story of two beautiful orphan sisters whose fates are as moving and wonderful, and yet as predestined, as the transits of the planets themselves. Now reissued as a Virago Classic with Bite

'One of the great English-language novels of the twentieth century' PARIS REVIEW
'The Transit of Venus is astronomical: as sharp, remote and dazzling as a celestial body' LAUREN GROFF
'A wonderfully mysterious book . unforgettably rich' ANNE TYLER
'Epic and microscopic . stitched in prose of gorgeously sustained intensity' GEOFF DYER

The tragedy is not that love doesn't last. The tragedy is the love that lasts.

Two sisters, Caroline and Grace Bell, leave Australia to begin a new life in post-war England. Courted long and hopelessly by young scientist, Ted Tice, strong-willed Caro is to find that love brings both betrayal and hope. The milder Grace seeks fulfilment in an apparently happy marriage. But as the decades pass and their paths weave and cross across the world - from Sydney to London, New York to Stockholm - two slow-burning secrets wait in ambush for them.

Shirley Hazzard's breathtaking masterpiece is an intricately plotted Greek tragedy, a sweeping family saga, and a desperate love story.