{"product_id":"9780735235465","title":"The Fraud","description":"\u003cb\u003eAN INSTANT \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a sprawling work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt 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 sceptical. 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. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAndrew Bogle meanwhile grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. He knows 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe “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… Based on real historical events, \u003ci\u003eThe Fraud \u003c\/i\u003eis a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity, and the mystery of “other people.”","brand":"Zadie Smith","offers":[{"title":"Penguin Canada |  Paperback \/ softback | Trade paperback (US) |  2024-09-03","offer_id":46019485729023,"sku":"9780735235465","price":25.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0329\/9075\/7001\/files\/BNCImageAPI_a84e88b6-7824-4289-a79f-168a4fc0ac2e.jpg?v=1723166318","url":"https:\/\/riverbookshop.com\/products\/9780735235465","provider":"River Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}