The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue

Eatwell, Piu Marie

ISBN 10: 1781856087 / ISBN 13: 9781781856086

Published by Head of Zeus, 2014

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read but remains in clean condition. All of the pages are intact and the cover is intact and the spine may show signs of wear. The book may have minor markings which are not specifically mentioned.

Seller Inventory # rev4338145699

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1781856087
• ISBN 13: 9781781856086
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 500 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The extraordinary story of the Druce-Portland affair, one of the most notorious, tangled, and bizarre legal cases of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras
 

In 1897 an elderly widow, Anna Maria Druce, made a strange request of the London Ecclesiastical Court: it was for the exhumation of the grave of her late father-in-law, T.C. Druce. Behind her application lay a sensational claim: that Druce had been none other than the eccentric and massively wealthy 5th Duke of Portland, and that the—now dead—Duke had faked the death of his alter ego. When opened, Anna Maria contended, Druce’s coffin would be found to be empty. And her children, therefore, were heirs to the Portland millions. The extraordinary legal case that followed would last for 10 years. Its eventual outcome revealed a dark underbelly of lies lurking beneath the genteel facade of late Victorian England.

About the Author

Piu Marie Eatwell is the author of They Eat Horses, Don’t They? The Truth About the French.