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The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue
The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue | Piu Marie Eatwell
11 posts | 15 read | 45 to read
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 doppelgnger 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 talesbe they by Charles Dickens or Wilkie Collins, The Importance of Being Earnest or The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydecould 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 timeand their inevitably sordid consequences.
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Hestapleton
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This, my friends, is what I call the Slacker Stack. 🤣📚Aka, my reading from now (11 am Friday) through the end of Sunday. Is it a workday? Yes. Will I be bothered? No.
Not picture on Kindle is the tagged book, THE BODY KEEPS SCORE, and THE NEW JIM CROW, all of which I hope to chip away at, but will not finish. #jubilantjuly

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Blueberry
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jmofo Ooooh The Last Report! 👾💗💜 6y
Blueberry @jmofo Good huh? It's from my TBR list. 6y
jmofo @Blueberry I loved it. I‘m looking forward to reading it again. It‘s a bit odd, wholly unlike anything I had read up until then. Funny, I‘ve been meaning to pick up an Erdrich, not realizing I had already read one. 🤓 6y
57 likes3 comments
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Blueberry
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Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks ❤️❤️ I have The Secret Keeper on my shelf!! 7y
53 likes1 stack add1 comment
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Simona
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I was seduced by the title and good price, but - I intend to read it someday 😊

#maybookflowers #missing

LeahBergen That title IS great! 8y
Simona @LeahBergen I hope that for the content also 🤞 8y
Loreen That is a great title. 😀 8y
MemoirsForMe Clever titles reel me in, too. 😊🎣 8y
69 likes1 stack add4 comments
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ElectricKatyLand
Mehso-so

Interesting story, okay writing.

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Matilda
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🔔📚🔔 this real-life Victorian mystery ended up on my must-read list bc of @Liberty so I just grabbed it. $1.99 Amazon/B&N

53 likes9 stack adds
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Ilana
Pickpick

This book may not be scary to some, but I loved the mystery and the absolute Kafkaesque nature of some of the trials that went on for these people was terrifying to me. Excellent nonfiction all around. @Litsy #ScaryRead #AllHallowsRead

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Moonpa
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Very interesting so far. I love when writers step back from the story and look at the bigger picture. For example, apparently there were other Victorians, well known and otherwise, who led double lives. And the detail in this book is just right, enough to be interesting but not boring or pedantic.

10 likes1 stack add
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JPeterson
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Mehso-so

An interesting, slightly comical story in history. The facts presented were just amazing in what had happened (or what people thought and said happened). However, the writing was dry and sometimes to "textbook," and there were chapters that didn't have anything to do with the case itself.

EliseWhitmore What a waste of a great title 8y
becausetrains Glad for the review - guess this is a library book and not a bookstore book for me. 8y
21 likes6 stack adds2 comments
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loveridge
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Pickpick

A fun historical mystery to read on the train. There were a few spots where it got a bit bogged down in genealogy, but it picked back up and had some interesting twists and turns along the way and a compelling cast of real-life eccentrics.

2 likes1 stack add
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hattiek
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Up next, I started this in the depths of phdwoe and couldn't concentrate. Time to try it again!

SGJ Wow, what a title. Very The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. 9y
7 likes2 stack adds1 comment