Book Description

At the centre of this novel are the young Lambs: Charles, constrained by the tedium of his work as a clerk at the East India Company and a young writer, and his clever, adoring sister Mary, confined by domesticity, an ailing, dotty father and a maddening mother ... Into their lives comes William Ireland, an ambitious 17-year-old antiquarian and bookseller, anxious not only to impress his demanding showman of a father, but to make his mark on the literary world. When Ireland turns up a document in the handwriting of Shakespeare himself, he takes Mary into his confidence - but soon scholars and actors alike are beating a path to the little bookshop in Holborn Passage.