The Original, Nell Stevens

© Eley Williams

Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick grows up an unwanted guest in her uncle’s once-great household. She has unusual skills and predilections: for painting, though faces elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls.

Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena. After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is coming home. When Charles returns, he is unrecognisable and uncanny, and doubt over his identity leads to uproar within the family. Who is Charles, really – and what will Grace sacrifice to find out?

The Original is a deftly plotted, stylish and witty novel about authenticity in art and in love.

Author Bio

Nell Stevens is the author of Bleaker House and Mrs Gaskell and Me which won the 2019 Somerset Maugham Award. She was shortlisted for the 2018 BBC National Short Story Award and her writing has been published in the New York Times, Vogue, The Paris Review, New York Review of Books, Guardian, Granta, and elsewhere. Nell is director of the creative writing program at the University of Warwick.