Войти
Текст
отзывы: 0 | рейтинг: 0
Полная версия
The American Boy
Andrew Taylor
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER AND AWARD-WINNING RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICKMurder, lies and betrayal in Regency EnglandEngland 1819. Thomas Shield, a master at a school just outside London, is tutor to a young American boy and the child’s sensitive best friend, Charles Frant. Helplessly drawn to Frant’s beautiful, unhappy mother, Shield becomes entwined in their family’s affairs.When a brutal murder takes place in London’s seedy backstreets, all clues lead to the Frant family, and Shield is tangled in a web of lies, money, sex and death that threatens to tear his new life apart.Soon, it emerges that at the heart of these macabre events lies the strange American boy. What secrets is the young Edgar Allan Poe hiding?
Copyright (#uf6a00c0b-673f-599d-97c9-605af80e752c)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Flamingo 2003
This ebook edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2003
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover illustration © Andrew Davidson/The Artworks
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008300753
Ebook Edition © December 2012 ISBN: 9780007380985
Version: 2018-09-25
Praise for The American Boy: (#uf6a00c0b-673f-599d-97c9-605af80e752c)
‘An enticing work of fiction … Taylor takes account of both a Georgian formality and a pre-Victorian laxity in social and sexual matters; he is adept at historical recreation, and allows a heady décor to work in his favour by having his mysteries come wrapped around by a creepy London fog or embedded picturesquely in a Gloucestershire snowdrift’
TLS
‘Possibly the best book of the decade is Andrew Taylor’s historical masterpiece, The American Boy. A truly captivating novel, rich with the sounds, smells, and cadences of nineteenth-century England’
Glasgow Herald
‘Long, sumptuous, near-edible account of Regency rogues – wicked bankers, City swindlers, crooked pedagogues and ladies on the make – all joined in the pursuit of the rich, full, sometimes shady life. A plot stuffed with incident and character, with period details impeccably rendered’
Literary Review
‘Taylor spins a magnificent tangential web … The book is full of sharply etched details evoking Dickensian London and is also a love story, shot through with the pain of a penniless and despised lover. This novel has the literary values which should take it to the top of the lists’
Scotland on Sunday
‘It is as if Taylor has used the great master of the bizarre as both starting-and finishing-point, but in between created a period piece with its own unique voice. The result should satisfy those drawn to the fictions of the nineteenth century, or Poe, or indeed to crime writing at its most creative’
Spectator
‘Andrew Taylor has flawlessly created the atmosphere of late-Regency London in The American Boy, with a cast of sharply observed characters in this dark tale of murder and embezzlement’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Madness, murder, misapplied money and macabre marriages are interspersed with coffins, corpses and cancelled codicils … an enjoyable and well-constructed puzzle’
Sunday Times
Dedication (#uf6a00c0b-673f-599d-97c9-605af80e752c)
For Sarah and William.
And, as always, for Caroline.
Epigraph (#uf6a00c0b-673f-599d-97c9-605af80e752c)
I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody
a record of my later years of unspeakable
misery, and unpardonable crime.
From ‘William Wilson’ by Edgar Allan Poe
Contents
Cover (#u92de31de-e059-5dd9-bc15-b33ffa1553a3)
Title Page (#u42d9b9f4-f560-53f3-ae89-c871de5ceca1)
Copyright
Praise for The American Boy
Dedication
Epigraph
The Wavenhoe Family, 1819
The Narrative of Thomas Shield, 1819–20
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Andrew Taylor
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER AND AWARD-WINNING RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICKMurder, lies and betrayal in Regency EnglandEngland 1819. Thomas Shield, a master at a school just outside London, is tutor to a young American boy and the child’s sensitive best friend, Charles Frant. Helplessly drawn to Frant’s beautiful, unhappy mother, Shield becomes entwined in their family’s affairs.When a brutal murder takes place in London’s seedy backstreets, all clues lead to the Frant family, and Shield is tangled in a web of lies, money, sex and death that threatens to tear his new life apart.Soon, it emerges that at the heart of these macabre events lies the strange American boy. What secrets is the young Edgar Allan Poe hiding?
Copyright (#uf6a00c0b-673f-599d-97c9-605af80e752c)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Flamingo 2003
This ebook edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2003
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover illustration © Andrew Davidson/The Artworks
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008300753
Ebook Edition © December 2012 ISBN: 9780007380985
Version: 2018-09-25
Praise for The American Boy: (#uf6a00c0b-673f-599d-97c9-605af80e752c)
‘An enticing work of fiction … Taylor takes account of both a Georgian formality and a pre-Victorian laxity in social and sexual matters; he is adept at historical recreation, and allows a heady décor to work in his favour by having his mysteries come wrapped around by a creepy London fog or embedded picturesquely in a Gloucestershire snowdrift’
TLS
‘Possibly the best book of the decade is Andrew Taylor’s historical masterpiece, The American Boy. A truly captivating novel, rich with the sounds, smells, and cadences of nineteenth-century England’
Glasgow Herald
‘Long, sumptuous, near-edible account of Regency rogues – wicked bankers, City swindlers, crooked pedagogues and ladies on the make – all joined in the pursuit of the rich, full, sometimes shady life. A plot stuffed with incident and character, with period details impeccably rendered’
Literary Review
‘Taylor spins a magnificent tangential web … The book is full of sharply etched details evoking Dickensian London and is also a love story, shot through with the pain of a penniless and despised lover. This novel has the literary values which should take it to the top of the lists’
Scotland on Sunday
‘It is as if Taylor has used the great master of the bizarre as both starting-and finishing-point, but in between created a period piece with its own unique voice. The result should satisfy those drawn to the fictions of the nineteenth century, or Poe, or indeed to crime writing at its most creative’
Spectator
‘Andrew Taylor has flawlessly created the atmosphere of late-Regency London in The American Boy, with a cast of sharply observed characters in this dark tale of murder and embezzlement’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Madness, murder, misapplied money and macabre marriages are interspersed with coffins, corpses and cancelled codicils … an enjoyable and well-constructed puzzle’
Sunday Times
Dedication (#uf6a00c0b-673f-599d-97c9-605af80e752c)
For Sarah and William.
And, as always, for Caroline.
Epigraph (#uf6a00c0b-673f-599d-97c9-605af80e752c)
I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody
a record of my later years of unspeakable
misery, and unpardonable crime.
From ‘William Wilson’ by Edgar Allan Poe
Contents
Cover (#u92de31de-e059-5dd9-bc15-b33ffa1553a3)
Title Page (#u42d9b9f4-f560-53f3-ae89-c871de5ceca1)
Copyright
Praise for The American Boy
Dedication
Epigraph
The Wavenhoe Family, 1819
The Narrative of Thomas Shield, 1819–20
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Другие книги автора:
Популярные книги
