'The Daughter of Time' by Josephine Tey

Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world’s most heinous villains—a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother’s children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England’s throne? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Little Princes in the Tower.

The Daughter of Time is an ingeniously plotted, beautifully written, and suspenseful tale, a supreme achievement from one of mystery writing’s most gifted masters.

Voted number one on the British Crimes Writers’ Association Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time list (1990) and number four on the Mystery Writers of America’s Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time list (1995).

The Folger Shakespeare Library’s collection explores not only Shakespeare’s life and works, but also the plays’ historical context, source material, critical and performance histories, and the ways in which they inspire and are adapted by contemporary novelists.

The Daughter of Time explores the historical facts surrounding one of Shakespeare’s most enduring villains, King Richard III, and interrogates how stories are preserved, who gets to tell them, and what can be discovered when we reexamine history from a new perspective.

Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh.  As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels featuring Scotland Yard’s Inspector Alan Grant. Mackintosh also wrote plays (both one act and full length), some of which were produced during her lifetime, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of her novels, A Shilling for Candles (1936) as Young and Innocent in 1937 and two other of her novels have been made into films, The Franchise Affair (1948), filmed in 1950, and ‘Brat Farrar’ (1949), filmed as Paranoiac in 1963. In addition, a number of her works have been dramatised for radio. Miss Mackintosh never married, and died at the age of 55, in London.

For this session, we are excited to once again partner with Solid State Books. Ideally situated in the heart of the bustling and historic H Street Corridor, Solid State Books provides our neighborhood with a vital intellectual and social hub. To learn more, visit their website at solidstatebooksdc.com.

Orders may be placed by email (orders@solidstatebooksdc.com) and the shop is open weekdays from 10am-9pm and on Saturdays and Sundays from 9am-9pm. You can also order through Bookshop.org.

This title can also be ordered as an audiobook from Libro.fm.