The Daughter of Time
The Daughter of Time is a 1951 novel by Josephine Tey concerning King Richard III of England. It was the last book Tey published, shortly before her death.
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[edit] Plot summary
Alan Grant, Scotland Yard Inspector (a character who also appears in five other novels by the same author) is confined to bed in hospital with a broken leg. Bored and of restless mind, he becomes intrigued by a reproduction of a portrait of King Richard III brought to him by a friend. He prides himself on being able to read a person's character from his appearance, and King Richard seems to him a gentle and kind and wise man. Why is everyone so sure that he was a cruel murderer? With the help of friends and acquaintances, Alan Grant investigates the case of the Princes in the Tower. Grant spends weeks pondering historical information and documents with the help of an American researcher for the British Museum. Using his detective's logic, he comes to the conclusion that the claim of Richard being a murderer is a fabrication of Tudor propaganda, as is the popular image of the King as a monstrous hunchback. The book points out the fact that there never was a Bill of Attainder, Coroner's Inquest, or any other legal proceeding that accused - much less convicted - Richard III of any foul play against the Princes in the Tower.
Further, the book explores how history is constructed, and how certain versions of events come to be widely accepted as the truth, despite a lack of evidence. "The Daughter of Time" of the title is from a quote by Sir Francis Bacon: "Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority."[1] Grant comes to understand the ways that great myths are constructed, and how in this case, the victorious Tudors saw to it that their version of history prevailed. Other myths touched upon by the author, are the commonly believed (but false) story that troops fired on the public at the 1910 Tonypandy Riot, the traditional depiction of the Boston Massacre and the life and death of Mary, Queen of Scots. Grant adopts the description "Tonypandy" to describe widely believed historical myths, such as the Tonypandy Riot, or deliberately falsified history, such as the life of Richard III.
[edit] Literary significance and criticism
"Without leaving his bed, Grant investigates the evidence and arrives at a convincing solution by means of acute historical detection, in a tale which Anthony Boucher called "one of the permanent classics in the detective field," and which Dorothy B. Hughes has termed "not only one of the most important mysteries of the year, but of all years of mystery".[2]
[edit] Works with similar themes
- Valerie Anand, another popular writer, wrote a novel, Crown of Roses (1989), in which Richard III is presented as innocent of the murder of the Princes.
- Mystery author Elizabeth George revisits this theme in I, Richard and The Murders of Richard III.
- Colin Dexter uses the same plot device of the incapacitated detective solving an old mystery in The Wench is Dead
- Margaret Haddix develops an alternate plot regarding Richard and the young princes in her Missing Series book, "Sent (novel)".
- Sharon Kay Penman, her award winning novel "The Sunne in Splendour".[3], in which one of Richard's stooges, the Duke of Buckingham, is presented as the murderer of the princes rather than Richard.
[edit] References
- ^ http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/the_daughter_of_time/
- ^ Roseman, Mill et al. Detectionary. New York: Overlook Press, 1971. ISBN 0-87951-041-2
- ^ http://www.sharonkaypenman.com/index.htm
