NOVEMBER READ - NO SPOILERS - Daughter of Time

I need to go request Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Has anyone read it or something by this author? Will anyone join me?

I read it many years ago and enjoyed it. Quite inventive, and a definite change of pace from her other mysteries. I think Louise Penny's The Beautiful Mystery is an homage to DoT. I might do a quick re-scan but I'm doing nano so I won't be doing any deep reading.

I'll read it with you, >1 Morphidae:. I have read it, it was one of my very favorite mysteries, so we shall see if the suck fairy is hanging around. :)

I won't be re-reading it now, as I read it a year or two ago, but I'll follow the conversation. I liked it a lot, and it gave me a much clearer understanding of that period of English history.

I have a real fondness for Daughter of Time because it uses the convention of the Great Detective sitting in his chair solving a crime by sheer thoughtfulness and knowledge of human behavior. Tey didn't use the convention more than this once, but she did it really, really well!

I have this one lined up to read. The only other book of Tey's that I've read is Miss Pym disposes, which I loved due to its setting in a girls' school.

I've been wanting to re-read this for a while now and would love to follow along with this discussion.

(I've been away from LT for a while, hoping this helps me dip my toes back into the water).

How shall we begin? The opening chapter has him staring at the ceiling and he's bestowing his own names on the nurses who are trying to care for him.

Is there a SPOILERS thread for this read?

I'm happy to say that I began reading today, I intend to finish tomorrow, and the suck fairy has not appeared one little bit. I'm enjoying it every bit as much as the first time I read it years ago.

Well, let me put forward a question for those just beginning. What do you think you learn about Alan Grant in that first chapter? That chapter focuses on his boredom in the hospital, I know, but what do you think Tey managed to convey about him as a personality in that initial introduction? (It wasn't her first Alan Grant mystery, but assuming that you are a first time reader of this particular book, what impression of Grant got left with you?)

If it's all right with everyone, I'll go and start a spoilers thread for this title and discussion! SPOILER THREAD STARTED OVER HERE --> https://www.librarything.com/topic/182518

Yeah, it's fine. I'm slacking.

I thought the Folio Society offers a nice bio of Josephine Tey. http://www.foliosociety.com/author/josephine-tey
Some of you may find it interesting if you aren't aware of her work as a playwright (under the pen name of Gordon Daviot).

>13 jillmwo: Very interesting, thank you.

I did not realize there were so few Alan Grant novels.

I'm starting the book today and will venture over to the spoilers thread.

One interesting note: The play, Richard of Bordeaux, referenced in Chapter 3 was actually a play by Tey herself, written under her other pseudonym, Gordon Daviot. (See link to her bio in >13 jillmwo: above)

Ha! I thought that sounded familiar, but didn't make the connection when I read the article! :D

By the way, >15 jeri889:, we'll be looking forward to your thoughts once you finish. We'll see you on the SPOILERS thread but in the meantime, I'll try to keep finding tidbits and posting 'em over here.

I started reading this on the train today and so far I'm absolutely loving it. The dissection of the various types of best-selling novels is hilarious and spot-on!

Today's factoid: The Tanner Constitutional History of England referenced in Chapter 4 was not a real title. Neither was the novel by Miss Payne-Ellis The Rose of Raby.

Sir Thomas More did, however, write about Richard III.

Final tidbit: This piece from the National Library of Medicine includes digital images of Richard III and (just as the Midget, the surgeon and the Matron did) offers a diagnosis of what ailed the monarch: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2726816/

Here is a facial reconstruction done of him, I believe from his bones, although I didn't read enough to know if that is a fact or not.


And I believe this is the image spoken of in the book. Hard to tell though, because there are several similar ones.

I read it years ago as a part of Tudor England class in class, and enjoyed it much. I was quite the Tudor-phile back in the day, and read everything I could find. I credit the movie Anne of the Thousand Days, which sent me on my way through the 940 section of the library. History nerd even at age 14. I may just have to re-visit Tey.

I enjoyed Anne of a Thousand Days as well! Genevieve Bujold played a perfect Anne Boleyn.

In the interest of further knowledge, I learned this week (or maybe last week) that they were going to sequence the genome of Richard III. Story was filed in February of 2014 --> http://www.heritagedaily.com/2014/02/genomes-of-richard-iii-and-his-proven-relat...

Before I start, it seems the common theory is that Richard killed the boys?

Yes, Morphy, conventional wisdom has it that Richard III was responsible for the disappearance of the two young princes.

As a follow-up, in Peter Ackroyd's non-fiction historical trilogy that begins with Foundation, he recounts the remarkably bloody history of the Plantagenet family and then finishes up this way:

"Edward IV murdered his brother, Clarence, just as his own two sons were murdered by their uncle. It is hard to imagine a family more steeped in slaughter and revenge, of which the War of the Roses were only one effusion."

It does seem as if there could be uncertainty about what constitutes acceptable behavior in terms of foul play within the family circle. But it is clear that Ackroyd lacks sympathy for the Ricardian revisionists...