The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A Book Riot Best Book of the Year
Goodreads Choice Award Finalist (History/Biography)
“It’s Downton Abbey meets The Addams Family in [this] delightfully offbeat history.” —Library Journal
At the close of the Victorian era, as now, privacy was power. The extraordinarily wealthy 5th Duke of Portland had a mania for it, hiding in his carriage and building tunnels between buildings to avoid being seen. In 1897, an elderly widow asked the court to exhume the grave of her late father-in-law, T. C. Druce, under the suspicion that he’d led a double life as the 5th Duke. The eccentric duke, Anna Maria contended, had faked his death as Druce, and her son should inherit the Portland millions. Revealing a dark underbelly of Victorian society, Piu Marie Eatwell evokes an era when the rise of sensationalist media blurred every fact into fiction and when family secrets and fluid identities pushed class anxieties to new heights.
Customer Reviews
Great Version of History Light
A great version of history light, meant for a popular audience. The narrative flows smoothly, and the story is a fascinating one. The documentation style is perhaps somewhat less ridged than most American academics would expect, but it work for the intended audience, and it apparent that research has been completed in a variety of archival holdings.