Melvyn Bragg's highly acclaimed, bestselling historical novel, the story behind one of the 19th century's greatest scandals.
'This is the story of an impostor and bigamist, a self-styled Colonel Hope, who travels to the North, where eventually he marries "The Maid of Buttermere", a young woman whose natural beauty inspired the dreams and confirmed the theories of various early nineteenth-century writers . . . It is a fine story . . . This is historical fiction with a human face'
Peter Ackroyd, The Times
'A skilled, ornate and convincing examination of a nineteenth-century scandal in Bragg's own Cumbria'
Thomas Keneally
'A triumph . . . I am overwhelmingly impressed'
Beryl Bainbridge
'Bragg achieves the most difficult of feats, the telling of the changing perceptions and ideals of a radical age . . . He is also as powerful as ever in his description of nature'
Sunday Times
- ISBN10 0340423730
- ISBN13 9780340423738
- Publish Date 1 January 1993 (first published 4 May 1987)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
- Imprint Sceptre
- Edition 2nd edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 464
- Language English