‘This is historical fiction with a human face’
Peter Ackroyd, The Times
‘A vivid and erudite tour de force’
Penelope Lively, Booker Prize-winning author of Moon Tiger
‘A skilled, ornate and convincing examination of a nineteenth-century scandal in Bragg’s own Cumbria’
Thomas Keneally, Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler’s Ark
Set in the Lake District in the early nineteenth century, this is a riveting story of love and deception, and a scandal that shook the entire nation.
Peter Ackroyd, The Times
‘A vivid and erudite tour de force’
Penelope Lively, Booker Prize-winning author of Moon Tiger
‘A skilled, ornate and convincing examination of a nineteenth-century scandal in Bragg’s own Cumbria’
Thomas Keneally, Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler’s Ark
Set in the Lake District in the early nineteenth century, this is a riveting story of love and deception, and a scandal that shook the entire nation.
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Reviews
A vivid and erudite tour de force
This is the story of an impostor and bigamist, a self-styled Colonel Hope, who travels to the North, where eventually he marries "The Maid of Buttermere", a young woman whose natural beauty inspired the dreams and confirmed the theories of various early nineteenth-century writers . . . It is a fine story . . . This is historical fiction with a human face
A skilled, ornate and convincing examination of a nineteenth-century scandal in Bragg's own Cumbria
A detailed, eloquent and affecting panorama of truth and lies . . . thrusts [him] into the front rank
A triumph . . . I am overwhelmingly impressed
Bragg achieves the most difficult of feats, the telling of the changing perceptions and ideals of a radical age . . . He is also as powerful as ever in his description of nature
A terrific tale of passion, lust, deception and moral outrage.
Bragg writes with picturesque clarity; his prose accommodates the formality of the period, the splendidly sombre wateriness of the place and the robust passions of the people who lived there
A fine novel, both sad and tragic. His background descriptions are beautiful . . . while his evocation of the early nineteenth century, and his handling of the ever-interesting topic of English snobbery is impeccable
Compelling . . . Painted on a broad canvas, packed with detail, with characters, with interesting psychological issues, and sallies into the history of the years 1802-1803
Very much enjoyed; a fine subject treated with great energy and imagination, and a gusto that Hazlitt would have admired
An ingenious telling of a romantic tragedy