Le carte segrete di Mary Brandon (0)

Trama

What is the tantalizing secret that Lady Mary Brandon holds from the world till death? A dedicated suffragette and philanthropist, beloved by all, she expires peacefully in her bed at the age of seventy-two, yet the attending physician refuses to sign a death certificate. This circumstance inspires young Maurice Evans to take a closer look at Lady Brandon's past.

Probing byways untrod by her official biographer, Evans follows the trail of Mary's early life, from a sequestered girlhood in a castle off the coast of Labrador to an education in the capitals of Europe as a proper Victorian heiress. Eventually she returns to the heart of the Brandon family in the Sussex countryside, where all too soon she is swept into the arms of a handsome cousin. Although their marriage is short-lived, their macabre wedding night is long to be remembered.

Drawing on numerous documents, including Mary's autobiographical novel, the memoirs of her governess, and the eyewitness account of a French maid, Evans gradually uncovers an imbroglio of deception and debauchery in the upper ranks of English society. He dies, alas, before the fruits of his research can be made public. Quentin Bell steps in to present The Brandon Papers--a literary entertainment of ingenious design, insidious humor, and deliciously Gothic suspense.