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The Maid of Buttermere
Melvyn Bragg’s highly acclaimed and bestselling historical novel, the story behind one of the 19th century’s greatest scandals.
Set in the Lake District in the early 19th century, the riveting story of an imposter, bigamist and fortune hunter who came to grief by falling helplessly in love with the famed ‘Maid of Buttermere’.
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Set in the Lake District in the early 19th century, the riveting story of an imposter, bigamist and fortune hunter who came to grief by falling helplessly in love with the famed ‘Maid of Buttermere’.
Reviews
An ingenious telling of a romantic tragedy
This is the story of an imposter and bigamist, a self-styled Colonel Hope, who travels to the North, where eventually he marries 'The Maid of Buttermere', a young woman whose natural beauty inspired the dreams and confirmed the theories of various early nineteenth-century writer . . . It is a fine story . . . This is historical fiction with a human face
A vivid and erudite tour de force - romantic fiction for the thinking reader
A detailed, eloquent and affecting panorama of truth and lies . . . thrusts [Bragg] into the front rank
A terrific tale of passion, lust, deception and moral outrage.
