The Franchise Affair

Josephine Tey is renowned for writing contemporary novels that refer to older mysteries. The Daughter of Time was unquestionably about an injured police Inspector learning about Richard III and the “Princes” – a device borrowed by Colin Dexter. Brat Farrar was about a missing boy who seems to reappear but whose identity is doubted, for…

SIR THOMAS MORE , A MAN FOR ALL REASONS: SAINT OR SINNER?

‘Not exactly the horse’s mouth’ In Josephine Tey’s spellbinding novel ‘The Daughter of Time’, Detective Inspector Alan Grant has a reputation for being able to spot a villain on sight. Whilst in hospital with a broken leg, Grant is idly flipping through some old postcard portraits to while away the time. He turns over a…

Brat Farrar

Josephine Tey’s novel Brat Farrar is widely perceived as having been based on the Victorian Tichborne case where a well-upholstered Australia-based butcher’s son posed as the missing claimant to a baronetcy. Arthur Orton/ Castro persuaded Roger Tichborne’s mother that he was the heir to the title, but very few others and lost his court cases.…

One of Richard’s finest rescuers….

This lady turned me into a Ricardian. Single-handedly. The Daughter of Time is a wonderful book that is still changing people’s lives today. Richard owes her a lot for rescuing him from the outer reaches of Shakespearean bias. I shall definitely be reading this new biography of her: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/josephine-tey-a-life-by-morag-henderson-review-entertaining/