1666: The Great Fire of London sweeps through the streets and a heavily pregnant woman flees the flames. A few months later she gives birth to a child disfigured by a red birthmark.
1718: Sixteen-year-old Eliza Tally sees the gleaming dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral rising above a rebuilt city. She arrives as an apothecary’s maid, a position hastily arranged to shield the father of her unborn child from scandal. But why is the apothecary so eager to welcome her when he already has a maid, a half-wit named Mary? Why is Eliza never allowed to look her veiled master in the face or go into the study where he pursues his experiments? It is only on her visits to the Huguenot bookseller who supplies her master’s scientific tomes that she realizes the nature of his obsession. And she knows she has to act to save not just the child but Mary and herself.
With exquisite prose, dark humor, and a historian’s eye for detail, Clare Clark has created another transporting novel.
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Book Description:
Published in hardcover by Harcourt, 2007, 978-0-15-101206-0/0-15-101206-7
From the Inside Flap:
"Clare Clark writes with the eyes of a historian and the soul of a novelist." ? Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire
1666: The Great Fire of London sweeps through the streets and a heavily pregnant woman flees the flames. A few months later she gives birth to a child disfigured by a red birthmark--and no wonder, since everyone knows that mothers who do not protect themselves from shocking sights could turn their unborn children into monsters.
1718: Sixteen-year-old Eliza Tally sees the gleaming dome of St. Paul's Cathedral rising above a rebuilt city. She arrives as an apothecary's maid, a position hastily arranged to shield the father of her unborn child?a wealthy merchant’s son--from scandal. But why is the apothecary so eager to welcome her when he already has a maid, a half-wit named Mary? Why is she never allowed to look her veiled master in the face or go into the study where he pursues his experiments? And why is she having terrifyingly vivid dreams of ferocious dogs, her greatest fear?
On one of her visits to the friendly Huguenot bookseller who keeps the apothecary supplied with scientific tomes, she finally realizes the nature of her master's obsession. And when she learns that Mary too is pregnant, she knows she has to act to save not just the child but Mary and herself.
From the highly acclaimed author of The Great Stink comes a consuming, passionate, darkly humorous tale set amid the clamor and chaos of eighteenth-century London.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHoughton Mifflin Harcourt
- Publication date2007
- ISBN 10 0151012067
- ISBN 13 9780151012060
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages382
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Rating