Before She Met Me

		Barnes's second book under his own name. Graham Hendrick divorces, remarries, and finds himself consumed with jealousy as he investigates his new wife's former love affairs. The novel is gritty, shocking, and quite moving in its portrayal of the slow deterioration of its central character. "So why should this jealousy linger on, unwanted, resented, only there to bugger you around? Like a middle ear, only there to make you lose your sense of balance; or like an appendix, only there to flare up insolently and have to be taken out. How did you take out jealousy?" Before She Met Me, p. 123.

English Editions (View Translations)

Before She Met Me. London: Jonathan Cape, 1982. £6.50. Print run: 3000.

Before She Met Me. London: Pan Books (Pavanne), 1983. Pp. 174.

Before She Met Me. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1986. $4.95.

Before She Met Me. London: Picador, 1986. Pp. 183.

Before She Met Me. New York: Vintage International, 1992. Pp. 183.

Before She Met Me. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1997. Pp. 160. With an afterwards by Ton Heuvelmans.

Selected Reviews

Testa, Silvia.LO SGUARDO DEFORMANTE: GELOSIA E INTERPRETAZIONE STORICA IN BEFORE SHE MET ME DI JULIAN BARNES. UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI BERGAMO, 2001. (FACOLTÀ DI LINGUE E LETTERATURE STRANIERE) http://www.julianbarnes.com/docs/testa.pdf

Millington,Mark I. and Alison S. Sinclair. "The Honorable Cuckold: Models of Masculine Defence." Comparative-Literature-Studies. 29 no.1 (1992): 1-19. (ISSN: 0010-4132) Greenwell, Bill. "Flashback." New Statesman 103 no.2665 (16 April 1982): 18-19.

Waugh, Harriet. "Green-Eyed." Spectator 248 (17 April 1982): 22.

Abley, Mark. "Watching Green-Eyed." Times Literary Supplement (23 April 1982): 456.

Reynolds, Stanley. "Great White Hopes." Punch (28 April 1982): 708-709.

Montrose, David. "Unhappy Families." Books and Bookmen (June 1982): 14.

Krist, Gary. "She Oughtn't to Have Been in Pictures." New York Times Book Review 91 (28 December 1986): 12.