Daughter of Time [Library Binding]

Josephine Tey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1996

In one of Tey's bestselling mystery novels ever, Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is intrigued by a portrait of Richard III. Could such a sensitive face actually belong to one of history's most heinous villains--a king who killed his brother's children to secure his crown? Grant determines to find out once and for all what kind of man Richard was and who in fact killed the princes in the tower.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Josephine Tey is often referred to as the mystery writer for people who don't like mysteries. Her skills at character development and mood setting, and her tendency to focus on themes not usually touched upon by mystery writers, have earned her a vast and appreciative audience. In Daughter of Time, Tey focuses on the legend of Richard III, the evil hunchback of British history accused of murdering his young nephews. While at a London hospital recuperating from a fall, Inspector Alan Grant becomes fascinated by a portrait of King Richard. A student of human faces, Grant cannot believe that the man in the picture would kill his own nephews. With an American researcher's help, Grant delves into his country's history to discover just what kind of man Richard Plantagenet was and who really killed the little princes. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

Since its publication in 1951, Josephine Tey's insightful mystery, The Daughter of Time has become a major resource on the death of the nephews of Richard III. It opens with a bored Detective Alan Grant, stuck in his hospital bed with a wounded hip and broken leg. His actress-friend, Marta Hallard, notices he is not reading and brings him some portraits to occupy his mind. Alan Grant becomes transfixed with the face of Richard III, which "had that incommunicable, that indescribable look that childhood suffering leaves behind." Thus begins Grant's travel through time to solve a five-hundred-year-old mystery: did Richard III kill his two nephews and have them buried in the Tower of London in order to eliminate all possible contenders for the throne? Initially Grant drafts all his friends to help him research; finally he hires Mr. Carradine as a real research assistant. Real life history is related to the audience through the reading of the characters, especially the frustrated curmudgeon, Detective Grant. Due to the detective's confinement, there is far less of the fast-paced action one often associates with mysteries, but the dialogue and interplay between Grant and Carradine is crisp and wonderful, and the conclusion is fascinating. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Vickie Sears --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Library Binding
• Publisher: Buccaneer Books Inc (February 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089966184X
• ISBN-13: 978-0899661841
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (183 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,639,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Josephine Tey is one of the best-known and best-loved of all crime writers. She began to write full-time after the successful publication of her first novel, The Man in the Queue (1929), which introduced Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard. In 1937 she returned to crime writing with A Shilling for Candles, but it wasn't until after the Second World War that the majority of her crime novels were published. Josephine Tey died in 1952, leaving her entire estate to the National Trust.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars History Is Written By The Victors!, April 26, 2004

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Daughter of Time (Paperback)

Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is bored out of his mind. Due to an unfortunate fall and multiple injuries he is bed ridden in the hospital and the long healing process and subsequent inaction are driving him crazy. A friend, knowing of the Inspector's passion for faces, brings him a portfolio of historical portraits thinking to distract him. She hopes he will involve himself in solving a "classic" historical mystery, since he seems to know all the facts of the Scotland Yard cases by heart. Grant homes in on the portrait of King Richard III, the supposedly wicked uncle who murdered his nephews, the boy princes, in the London's Tower. He remembers how Richard was portrayed in elementary school history and certainly recalls Shakespeare's vivid portrait of the evil hunchbacked king. However, try as he may, Grant cannot reconcile the face in the painting with that of a tyrannical childrens' murderer and usurper of England's throne. He sees conscience and integrity in the face of the painting's subject. And his curiousity is aroused for the first time since his accident.

Grant asks for historical books and reads everything he can get his hands on. He finally comes into contact with a young research student from America who also becomes caught-up in the hypothesis that Richard III was framed. Author Josephine Tey, with the skill of the best in Scotland Yard, conducts an objective investigation of a centuries-old crime. She evenly portrays both side of the story, Richard III's and King Henry VII's (the other suspect), with all its twists and turns, reveals compelling evidence and comes to an amazing conclusion.

The reader is literally taken back in time to examine the accusations, testimonies and material relating to the death of Richard's brother, King Edward IV in 1483, the known history of his sons, Princes Edward and Richard after their father's death and their mysterious disappearance, the behavior of Edward's widow and children, including his eldest daughter Elizabeth, who becomes Henry's bride, Queen and mother to Henry VIII. Tey provides an extraordinarily well researched profile of Richard III, pieced together directly from historical documents, and another profile of Henry Tudor. The author also examines the 1934 exhumation of the two children who were first dug up in 1674. Motives are examined and finally, conclusions are drawn, proving, once again, that history is written by winners.

This is a riveting piece of detective history. Usually historians are detectives. In this case we are introduced to a detective who becomes a historian. Step-by-step, Grant plays out his theories according to evidence and comes up with logical deductions. One may already know what the conclusions are, but that is not the point of this mystery novel. The book provides the opportunity to go back in history and view a more three-dimensional side to well known characters, examine documents, and understand the rationale of those who lied or who closed their eyes to the truth. In this case, a mistrust of the official version of "the truth" brings the truth to light.

Alan Grant and the supporting cast of characters are wonderful, as is the witty dialogue. The young American, Brent Carradine, is hardworking and touching in his zeal to do something meaningful. This excellent mystery by Josephine Tey is a delight and a remarkably riveting read.
JANA

99 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ricardian Argument, With Delightful Training Wheels, February 10, 2002

By 

Paul Frandano (Reston, Va. USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Daughter of Time (Paperback)

What thoughtful reader hasn't experienced Shakespeare's Richard III and wondered about the accuracy of the Bard's portrayal? Thus did Josephine Tey, near the close of her authorial career, delve into some of the lost nooks and crannies of English history in an effort to recover "the real Richard."

The well-known hurdle for all would-be Ricardians is, of course, the utter absence of source material contemporary to Richard's reign, and most of all anything that discusses the fate of the "princes in the Tower." All that is generally counted as "authoritative," it turns out, is the product of Tudor dynasty information factories. Tey, however, very likely had in her possession the writings of Sir Clements Markham, a late Victorian-era civil servant, whose careful revisionist argument is here unfolded in a lively, compelling narrative of incremental discovery.

Prompted by a reproduction of a famous portrait of Richard, Tey's laid-up sleuth, with the help of an American researcher, marshalls from his bed an archival assault on the estimable Sir Thomas More, Henry (the VII) Tudor, and the entire phalanx of worthies who have reported, for the last half a millennium, that Richard was the demonic crookback murderer of Shakespeare's characterization. Happily for us, there's more (sic) to the story than the traditional record, and those not already sucked into the revisionist Ricardian argument may very well be converted. Tey's engaging "fiction" is not only a great boon to all Ricardians--who, with Richard III Societies on both sides of the pond, must surely win hundreds if not thousands of new converts yearly as a result of this 50-year-old work--but the perfect place to begin your own exploration of this great historical proto-conspiracy.

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mystery of History, January 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Daughter of Time (Paperback)

Since the winner writes the history books, it's not surprising most people believe that Richard III was evil. According to Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare, he had various members of his family killed, including his poor little nephews, so that he could be king. It's important to remember that much of what we think we know about Richard was written during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I -- who were on the throne as the direct result of the defeat of Richard. To justify the Tudors (Henry's father, I believe) seizing power, Richard had to be cast as the bad guy. We may never know what actually happened, but Josephine Tey presents a different look into history using actual letters and documents from that time. It all starts with a modern-day homicide detective who prides himself on being able to read faces. When he sees Richard's portrait (without knowing who it is), he doesn't pick it as the face of an evil murderer. I've seen Richard's portrait in the National Portrait Gallery in London -- and I think Tey's character, although fictional, may be on to something.