| Description |
454 pages ; 25 cm |
| Summary |
"It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper--and cousin by marriage--of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also skeptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems. Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story. The "Tichborne Trial"--wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title--captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task."-- Provided by publisher. |
| Subject |
Orton, Arthur, 1834-1898 -- Trials, litigation, etc. -- Fiction.
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Peerage claims -- Great Britain -- Fiction.
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Ainsworth, William Harrison, 1805-1882 -- Fiction.
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Impostors and imposture -- Fiction.
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Housekeepers -- Fiction.
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Cousins -- Fiction.
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Trials -- Fiction.
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London (England) -- Fiction.
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Housekeepers -- Fiction.
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Great Britain -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction.
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| Genre/Form |
Historical fiction.
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Novels. (OCoLC)fst01921742
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Mystery fiction.
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Historical fiction.
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Legal fiction (Literature)
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Novels.
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| ISBN |
9780525558965 hardcover |
|
0525558969 hardcover |
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