'In 2009 David Malouf's Ransom was published to great critical and popular acclaim. Ransom presents itself very simply as a beautiful story about (among other things) loss, love, vulnerability and storytelling. But what does it mean to talk about the beautiful in writing? Etienne Gilson argues that writing is a making before it is a knowing or willing, so its primary concern is not a truth to be known or a good to be willed. Its primary concern is beauty. This paper explores how the beautiful operates in, and structures, Ransom.' (Author's abstract)