The Editor

For readers of The Paris Wife (Paula McLain) and That Churchill Woman (Stephanie Barron) – a historical novel about a woman who has shaped a famous man’s legacy, and which asks the reader to question whether that legacy deserves to endure.

London, July 1826: Lady Sophia Raffles is left widowed and in debt after the sudden death of her husband, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, later remembered as the ‘founder of Singapore’. Determined to restore his name after he is cleared of the East India Company’s charges, Sophia takes on the formidable challenge of compiling an account of his life. Her Memoir of the Life and Public Service of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles is published to critical acclaim in 1830.

Accomplished at enormous personal and financial cost, at a time when women did not write memoirs, it is a remarkable feat. It becomes the single most important source for all later accounts of her husband, saving him from obscurity and shaping his legacy. But Sophia must also confront shadowy truths behind the glory she feels bound to uphold, and face doubts about the marriage she thought she knew. Set against vivid impressions of Sumatra, Java, Penang and Singapore, her journey spans the transformation from grief-stricken widow to powerful arbiter of history.