William Harrison Ainsworth – She Reads Novels

When I saw this year’s longlist for the Walter Scott Prize, one of the books I was most interested in reading was The Fraud. I haven’t read any of Zadie Smith’s other books, but the subject and setting of this one sounded appealing to me.

At the heart of the novel is a real-life court case in which a man many believe to be Arthur Orton, a butcher’s son from London, claims to be Roger Tichborne, the missing heir to a baronetcy thought to have died in a shipwreck in 1854. The ‘Claimant’, as he becomes known, is immediately identified as Roger by his mother, but the rest of the Tichborne family insist that he’s an imposter. The dispute goes on for several years and captures the imagination of the public, with people travelling for miles to come and watch the case play out in court. Two of the people following the proceedings with interest are Sarah Ainsworth and Eliza Touchet, who are central characters in Smith’s novel.

Eliza Touchet is a cousin by marriage of the novelist William Harrison Ainsworth and has lived with him as his housekeeper – and occasional lover – since the 1830s, while also growing close to his first wife, Frances. By the time of the Tichborne trial several decades later, William has been widowed and married again, this time to Sarah, his former maid. Sarah is obsessed with the Tichbornes and convinced that the Claimant is telling the truth and it is she who persuades Eliza to accompany her to court. Here Eliza finds herself drawn not to the supposed Sir Roger, but to one of the key witnesses – Andrew Bogle, an elderly black man who was Roger’s uncle’s servant and is one of the few people to speak up in support of the Claimant.

The novel moves backwards and forwards in time between the 1830s and 1870s, with the story unfolding through a series of very short chapters, sometimes only a page or two long. I wasn’t really a fan of this structure, as it made it difficult to become fully immersed and keep track of what was happening. And there’s a lot happening! As well as the coverage of the Tichborne trial, there’s a long digression into the early life of Andrew Bogle as a slave on a plantation in Jamaica, discussions of the Victorian literary scene and domestic details of life in the Ainsworth household. There were too many separate storylines for one book and some of them didn’t really seem to lead anywhere or integrate with the others. Having said that, I still found things to enjoy and my overall feelings about the book are probably slightly more positive than negative!

Most of the people who appear in The Fraud really existed, although not necessarily as Zadie Smith describes them. Eliza Touchet, for example, was a real person but died much earlier than she does in the novel and wouldn’t have been around by the time of the Tichborne case, so while there’s a lot to learn from this book it’s worth remembering that it’s not all factually correct. I did find it interesting to read about the life and work of William Harrison Ainsworth, whose books were hugely popular at the time – particularly Jack Sheppard, one of the ‘Newgate novels’ Claire Harman discusses in her true crime book, Murder by the Book – but have largely been forgotten today. Smith explores Ainsworth’s rivalry with Charles Dickens, as well as allegations that he stole some of the ideas for his novels from his illustrator, George Cruikshank. Is it just the Tichborne Claimant who is the ‘fraud’ of the title or could it also be Ainsworth himself?

Although there were parts of The Fraud that I enjoyed, I think there was really enough material here for two or three books and I ended up feeling overwhelmed. Maybe a different Zadie Smith book would have been a better starting point for me after all.

Book 15/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but I’ve been reading more of it than usual over the last few weeks in preparation for Nonfiction November. Murder by the Book, an account of a true crime which took place in Victorian London, sounded appealing to me because it promised to explore the possible links between the crime and some of the bestselling novels of the day.

The book begins by describing the events of 6th May 1840, when Lord William Russell’s housemaid found her master in bed with his throat slit. Suicide was suspected at first, but with his head almost severed from his body, this theory was dismissed and a murder investigation began. Russell, an elderly widower, had been leading a quiet, unremarkable life, living alone (apart from his servants) in a respectable Mayfair street. Who could possibly have wanted him dead – and why?

The murder sent shockwaves throughout London, with everyone – including Queen Victoria herself – following the news and voicing their opinions. What made this particular case so shocking was that when the culprit was identified and questioned, it was found that before committing the murder he had been reading Jack Sheppard, a well-known novel by William Harrison Ainsworth. Based on the story of a real life 18th century criminal, Jack Sheppard had been published as a serial in Bentley’s Miscellany from January 1839 until February 1840. With plots involving murder, theft and violence, crime novels of this type had become known as ‘Newgate Novels’ (a reference to the Newgate Prison), and were hugely popular with the public, partly due to the rise in literacy levels during the first half of the 19th century. Following the Russell murder, a debate began regarding the suitability of this sort of reading material.

I enjoyed Murder by the Book, but I didn’t find the true crime element particularly interesting. There didn’t seem to be a lot of mystery surrounding Russell’s death and the murderer was arrested quite quickly. Although Claire Harman did manage to flesh the story out, on its own it wouldn’t have been enough to form a compelling book. The parts where she discussed Jack Sheppard and other popular novels of the time were of much more interest to me. I haven’t read Jack Sheppard, or anything else by William Harrison Ainsworth, and I’d had no idea that it had been so successful in its time. The book was adapted for stage many times, including some musical versions, so even if people hadn’t read it they were likely to have seen it performed.

The reactions of other authors were interesting; Charles Dickens had apparently been a friend of Ainsworth’s, but distanced himself from him after the Russell incident, doing all he could to defend the reputation of his own Oliver Twist, which covered similar themes. Both Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray followed the outcome of the murder trial and attended the hanging of the culprit and some of their thoughts on this are given in the book.

Anyway, the social aspects of the book were fascinating, even if the true crime parts weren’t – although I was surprised that Claire Harman didn’t draw more parallels between the Jack Sheppard controversy and the perceived influence of modern television, music and video games on violent behaviour. The book reminded me of Kate Summerscale’s The Wicked Boy and I think if you enjoy one you might enjoy the other.

Thanks to Viking for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.