The Fraud: A Novel by Zadie Smith (Author)

From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who deserves to tell their story—& who deserves to be believed 

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—& cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for 30 years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life & the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; & England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems. 

Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story. 

The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate & title—captivates Mrs. Touchet & all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy & self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task. . . . 

Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth & fiction, Jamaica & Britain, fraudulence & authenticity & the mystery of “other people.”

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Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW & Swing Time; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free & Intimations;…