Ethel & Ernest

This tender, full-length graphic novel from Raymond Briggs, published by Jonathan Cape in 1998, chronicles the real-life, decades-long marriage of the author’s own parents, from their first meeting in 1920s London through the end of their lives. A quietly monumental work of biographical comics, it distills the sweep of 20th-century British history—wars, social change, and everyday resilience—into the intimate, unadorned rhythms of a single, loving household. Briggs’s delicate watercolors and understated storytelling make this a deeply personal and universally resonant portrait of ordinary lives lived with extraordinary grace.