Encyclopedia of Early Earth: A Novel

Before our history began, another—now forgotten—civilization thrived. The people who roamed Early Earth were much like us: curious, emotional, funny, ambitious, and vulnerable. In this series of illustrated and linked tales, Isabel Greenberg chronicles the explorations of a young man as he paddles from his home in the North Pole to the South Pole. There, he meets his true love, but their romance is ill-fated. Early Earth's unusual and finicky polarity means the lovers can never touch.

As intricate and richly imagined as the work of Chris Ware, and leavened with a dry wit that rivals Kate Beaton's in Hark! A Vagrant, Isabel Greenberg's The Encyclopedia of Early Earth will be a welcome addition to the thriving graphic novel genre.

"It's a book about many things—love, snow, god, poisoned sausages . . . but mostly it's a celebration of storytelling itself. Strange and wry and funny and beautifully drawn." —Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time

"A handsome volume with the intimacy and sweep of a modern fairy tale. . . . Its deceptively naïve look matches the tone of Greenberg's tale: stories of jealousy, revenge and love—classics reimagined." — Chicago Tribune

"Part storybook, part allegory, part meditation on the need for mankind to tell stories, the book manages to encompass all of existence without ever feeling too big for its britches. Never has a story about the primordial world felt so cozy. . . . The images stay long after the book has closed. What better proof of a story's worth?" — A.V. Club