Boyd Tonkin

A tale of cruelty and imposture: The Fraud, by Zadie Smith, reviewed

Smith’s sweeping historical novel spans slavery in Jamaica in the 1770s and the marathon trials of the Tichborne Claimant in London a century later

The butcher Arthur Orton, also known as Thomas Castro, the Tichborne Claimant c. 1867. [Rischgitz/ Hulton Archive/ Getty Images] 
issue 02 September 2023

‘Is this all that these modern ladies’ novels are to be about? People?’ So asks the bewildered author of Old St Paul’s, The Lancashire Witches, The Tower of London and three dozen other forgotten blockbusters stacked with costumed folderol. In Zadie Smith’s sixth novel, William Harrison Ainsworth disapproves, in 1871, of hiscousin-housekeeper, Eliza Touchet, reading a nameless story of dull village folk with ‘no adventure, no drama, no murder’.

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