The Fraud

I just finished The Fraud (2023) by Zadie Smith. Fantastic!

"Oh, what does it matter what that man thinks of anything? He's a novelist!"

This is an historical novel about a real trial and with lots of real people and events. Novelists William Harrison Ainsworth, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and George Eliot all appear. Indeed, the protagonist, Eliza Touchet, is Ainsworth's cousin.

The trial at the center of everything is the Tichborne case, one of the longest trials in English legal history. It is so ridiculous, it would be silly if it weren't true.