The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue
352The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue
352Hardcover
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Overview
One of the most notorious and bizarre mysteries of the Edwardian age, for readers who loved The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher.
In 1898, an elderly widow, Anna Maria Druce, came to the British court with an astonishing request. She stood among the overflowing pews of St. Pauls Cathedral claiming that the merchant T. C. Druce, her late father-in-law, had in truth been a secret identity for none other than the deceased and enormously wealthy 5th Duke of Portland. Maintaining her composure amid growing agitation from the clutch of lawyers, journalists, and curious onlookers crowded into the church, Mrs. Druce claimed that Druce had been the duke's alter ego and that the duke had, in 1864, faked the death of his middle-class doppelgänger when he grew tired of the ruse. Mrs. Druce wanted the tomb unlocked and her father-in-law's coffin exhumed, adamant that it would lie empty, proving the falsehood and leaving her son to inherit the vast Portland estate. From that fateful afternoon, the lurid details of the Druce-Portland case spilled forth, seizing the attention of the British public for over a decade.
As the Victoria era gave way to the Edwardian, the rise of sensationalist media blurred every fact into fiction, and family secrets and fluid identities pushed class anxieties to new heights. The 5th Duke of Portland had long been the victim of suspicion and scandalous rumors; an odd man with a fervent penchant for privacy, he lived his days in precisely coordinated isolation in the dilapidated Welbeck Abbey estate. He constructed elaborate underground passageways from one end of his home to the other and communicated with his household staff through letters. T.C. Druce was a similarly mysterious figure and had always remained startlingly evasive about his origins; on his arrival in London he claimed to have "sprung from the clouds."
Drawing from revelations hidden within the Druce family tomb in the chilly confines of Highgate Cemetery, Piu Marie Eatwell recounts one of the most drawn-out sagas of the era in penetrating, gripping detail. From each thwarted investigation and wicked attempt to conceal evidence to the parade of peculiar figures announcing themselves as the rightful heir, Eatwell paints a portentous portrait of England at the dawn of the Edwardian age.
Few tales—be they by Charles Dickens or Wilkie Collins, The Importance of Being Earnest or The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—could surpass the bizarre and deliciously dark twists and turns of the Druce-Portland affair. A mesmerizing tour through the tangled hierarchies of Edwardian England, The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse illuminates the lies, deceit, and hypocrisy practiced by "genteel" society at the time—and their inevitably sordid consequences.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781631491238 |
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Publisher: | Liveright Publishing Corporation |
Publication date: | 10/05/2015 |
Pages: | 352 |
Product dimensions: | 6.50(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Dramatis Personae ix
Act 1 Burial
Scene 1 Welbeck Abbey, December 1879 3
Scene 2 St Paul's Cathedral, March 1898 18
Scene 3 Highgate Cemetery, March 1898 29
Scene 4 Baker Street and Cavendish Square, 1860s 38
Scene 5 The Streets of London, Summer 1898 54
Scene 6 Featherstone Buildings, December 1898 75
Scene 7 The New London Law Courts, Three years later 87
Act 2 Resurrection
Scene 8 Bury St Edmunds, October 1816 105
Scene 9 On Board RMS Oroya, May 1903 120
Scene 10 An Office on London Wall, March 1907 133
Scene 11 Marylebone Police Court, October-December 1907 154
Scene 12 The Druce Vault, December 1907 175
Scene 13 The Police Courts, One week later 185
Act 3 Revelation
Scene 14 London and Welbeck, December 1907 193
Scene 15 London and Worksop, January 1908 201
Scene 16 Holloway Prison, January 1908 216
Scene 17 A London Hotel, September 1898 227
Scene 18 Sledmere House, East Ridings 1870s 241
Scene 19 A Library in Nottingham, October 2013 256
Scene 20 Welbeck Abbey, October 2013 276
Epilogue An Obscure Grave, London, December 2013 290
Postscript 294
2014 Postscript 295
Notes 301
Acknowledgments 327
Select Bibliography 329
Picture Credits 337