by PeterAckroyd (Author)
At the centre of this intriguing, irresistible novel are the young Lambs: Charles, constrained by the tedium of his work as a clerk at the East India Company, taking refuge in a drink or three too many while spreading his wings as a young writer, and his clever, adoring sister Mary, confined by domesticity, an ailing, dotty father and a maddening mother- Into their lives comes William Ireland, an ambitious 17-year-old antiquarian and bookseller, anxious not only to impress his demanding showman of a father, but to make his mark on the literary world. When Ireland turns up a document in the handwriting of Shakespeare himself, he takes Mary into his confidence - but soon scholars and actors alike are beating a path to the little bookshop in Holborn Passage. Touching and tragic, ingenious, funny and vividly alive, this is Ackroyd at the top of his form in a masterly retelling of a nineteenth-century drama which keeps the reader guessing right to the end.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 05 Aug 2004
ISBN 10: 0701177446
ISBN 13: 9780701177447
Book Overview: A tour de force in the tradition of Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor and Chatterton, a gripping novel of betrayal and deceit set in the teeming streets of nineteenth-century London