Perfume (novel)

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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

First edition (German)
Author	Patrick Süskind
Cover artist	Antoine Watteau detail from "Jupiter and Antiope", 1715–16[1]
Language	German
Genre	Horror fiction, mystery, magic realism, absurd
Set in	Paris, Montpellier, Grasse and Plomb du Cantal; 1738–1767
Publisher	Diogenes (Germany) Alfred A. Knopf (US) Hamish Hamilton (UK)
Publication date	1985
Publication place	Germany
Media type	Print (Hardback & paperback)
Pages	263 (UK hardback edition)
ISBN	0-241-11919-7 (UK hardback edition)
OCLC	14130766
Dewey Decimal	833.914
LC Class	PT2681 .U74

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (German: Das Parfum: Die Geschichte eines Mörders [das paʁˈfœ̃ː diː ɡəˈʃɪçtə ˈʔaɪnəs ˈmœʁdɐs] ^ⓘ) is a 1985 literary historical fantasy novel by German writer Patrick Süskind. The novel explores the sense of smell and its relationship with the emotional meanings that scents may have.

The story follows Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an unloved orphan in 18th-century France who is born with an exceptional sense of smell, capable of distinguishing a vast range of scents in the world around him. Grenouille becomes a perfumer but later becomes involved in murder when he encounters a young girl with an unsurpassed wondrous scent.

With translations into 49 languages and more than 20 million copies sold worldwide to date, Perfume is one of the best-selling German novels of the 20th century.^[2] The title remained in bestseller lists for about nine years and received almost unanimously positive national and international critical acclaim. It was translated into English by John E. Woods and won both the World Fantasy Award and the PEN Translation Prize in 1987. Some editions of the novel, including the first, have as their cover image Antoine Watteau's painting, Jupiter and Antiope, which depicts a sleeping woman.