Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Patrick Süskind's 1985 novel, translated into English by John E. Woods, is set in eighteenth-century France and follows Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a foundling born without any personal odor of his own but possessed of a supernaturally precise sense of smell. Apprenticed first to a Paris tanner and then to a struggling perfumer named Baldini, Grenouille catalogues the entire smell-world of the city, finds his way south to the perfume-making town of Grasse, and slowly arrives at the only ambition his strange brain can hold, which is to capture and bottle the most intoxicating scent in the world, the scent of a beautiful young woman. The book moves with the cool, fairy-tale precision of an eighteenth-century philosophical conte and ends with one of the most audacious public scenes in modern European literature. It has sold more than twenty million copies and was filmed by Tom Tykwer in 2006.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Born in the stinking heart of pre-Revolutionary Paris with no body odor at all but a supernatural sense of smell, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille becomes a perfumer who will kill to bottle a perfect scent.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer was written by Patrick Suskind and originally published in German in 1985. The English translation by John E. Woods was released in 1986. It became a global bestseller.
Yes. Tom Tykwer directed a 2006 film adaptation starring Ben Whishaw. The film was a major European production and is widely considered a faithful interpretation of the novel's atmosphere.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.