Fraud

No cover

Fraud (2023, Penguin Books, Limited)

English language

Published June 23, 2023 by Penguin Books, Limited.

ISBN:
9780241336991

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4 stars (2 reviews)

4 editions

"A person is a bottomless thing."

4 stars

This book may just as well have been written with me as the specific target audience. A short list of things I adore:

-- 19th century literature -- 19th century London -- books that include Dickens as a character (and portray him as an asshole) -- complicated bisexual heroines (lock up your husband AND your wife, Eliza is coming for them both)

Smith took a rather obscure historical event and a person who was previously not much more than a name scrawled in a famous book and breathed tremendous life into all of it. Reading this was just as rich and rewarding as reading anything by my beloved Victorians. (Although certainly more rewarding anything by Ainsworth, judging by the short passages Smith quotes in the book. It does not surprise me that dear William has largely been forgotten and is no longer in print at all.)

I adored Eliza. She's …

Review of 'Fraud' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

The Fraud by Zadie Smith is a captivating historical fiction novel that transports readers to 19th-century England, delving into the intricacies of a celebrated criminal trial, the Tichborne case. With meticulous attention to detail, Smith weaves a tale that revolves around Eliza Touchet, a Scottish widow who finds herself entangled in the life of William Ainsworth, a popular Victorian novelist.

William Ainsworth, who was Charles Dickens’ friend and a more successful author in their early years, is portrayed as a waning literary figure who is fighting to stay relevant. He serves as a symbol of the challenges faced by writers during Victorian England, as new literary movements and tastes began to emerge.


The big trial and the unfolding social and psychological drama are what drive the plot of the novel. Eliza Touchet's interest is piqued by one of the primary witnesses in the trial, the enigmatic figure of Andrew Bogle, …