Zadie Smith’s first historical novel is loosely based on the life of the Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth, who in the 1830’s was as popular as Charles Dickens. At the centre of the tale however is the factual account of the Tichborne Trial of 1873 and the hold it had on the public at the time. The claimant was supported by Andrew Bogle a former slave and the author doesn’t shy away from the cruelties inflicted upon slaves in the colonies when relating the story of his life.
Holding the different story strands together is Eliza Touchet, Ainsworth’s widowed cousin who moves in with the household. Her acerbic wit and keen intellect make for many amusing asides about the public figures of the day like Dickens and Thackeray as well as her cousin, although she does her best to prevent him seeing adverse press when his reputation wanes. I like the way the author deals with weighty topics such as class, poverty and the role of women by using a light hand and little vignettes which make the point far more effectively. For instance Sarah, William’s young second wife who they all make fun of, turns the tables on Eliza by taking her to Stepney and showing her what real poverty looks like.
Zadie Smith brings this period of history to life, she must have done an enormous amount of research and blends fiction into the story effortlessly when it is required. In some ways it reminded me of Sarah Walters earlier work. It’s a clever interesting novel and deserves great success.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General for an ARC

The main protagonist of 'The Fraud' by Zadie Smith is Eliza Touchet. The Scottish Housekeeper and cousin by marriage of William Ainsworth, a once respected novelist, Eliza recalls dinner parties were she was celebrated by famous authors such as Dickens and Thackery, Now in her 60's and with Ainsworth continuing to churn out novels to no acclaim, Eliza seeks freedom and excitement. She finds distraction and fascination in Andrew Bogel - a man born on the Hope plantation in Jamaica and famous in England due to his involvement in the Tichborne Trial.

In recent years, I have found Smith's novels to be too consciously literary. Ironically, when the focus of her material is upon literary circles, her writing here felt less self conscious and much more enjoyable. Smith's depiction of Touchet is well developed, and seeing events through her eyes works well. I particularly liked her observations of vampiric Dickens, her love for her cousin and her relationships with his wives. The Tichborne trial and the mania surrounding it is also fascinating, and whilst initially the segway into Andrew Bogel's history caused me to worry the novel was taking a less favourable turn, I was quickly engrossed. For me this novel shows Smith back on form (writing books that people can enjoy, rather than feel clever for reading). I would highly recommend.

Trying to summarise this novel feels impossible because it is so rich and full. I don’t tend to reach for historical fiction but this was worth the exception. Only Zadie Smith could write a novel with so many interlocking characters and storylines and not only maintain interest and intrigue throughout, but also deliver a tidy and satisfying ending.

Smith’s character studies and the perspectives she writes from are always my favourite part of her novels, especially this one in which she favoured forgotten figures over the big names of the day. Her portrayals are nuanced and humorous, and she always seems to be winking to the audience at the expense of her characters. She revels in small details and contradictions, like her protagonist Mrs Touchet being a vocal abolitionist but hesitating to take a Black man’s hand, in a way that leads to bigger discussions about the society and period in which she is writing.

It is difficult to imagine how the experiences of enslaved people on a Jamaican plantation and the society that they creatr for themselves, and a literary circle of shoulder-rubbing and back-stabbing men, including Charles Dickens, could occupy the same novel. But Smith explores how colonial occupation of places like Jamaica is funding British society but keeing the poor out of work, and how debates in Britain over freedom, worker rights and land ownership, are shaping the lives of enslaved people around the world who are given no say in their own futures even after the abolition of slavery. The case of Mr Tichbourne, a man accused of falsifying his identity in order to claim a large inheritance, with the support of Mr Bogle, a former page to the family born on a Jamaican plantation, unites the novel’s various threads – the rights of men and women (black and white, enslaved and free), the tensions between the working and upper classes, colonial profiteering in the aftermath of slavery, the necessity of protective laws in place of individual morals and religious leanings, and the question over which stories get to be told and who gets to tell them.

There are so many elements to this novel, and even more ways in which they are influencing one another. It is a triumph, an all-consuming read that keeps you asking questions beyond the final page.

Zadie Smith’s novel is beautifully-researched, an unearthing and retelling of largely-forgotten histories and historical figures. At its centre is waspish, queer Eliza Touchit, housekeeper for her cousin William Harrison Ainsworth. A prolific writer, Ainsworth was once popular enough to outsell Dickens, but now he’s almost forgotten. Although his household is now cut off from England’s literary circles, everyone still avidly follows the news. Slowly Eliza becomes fascinated with the cause célèbre that is the Tichborne Case, in which a man claiming to be long-lost heir Roger Tichborne is now laying claim to a potential fortune. At the Tichborne Claimant’s side is his stanch supporter Andrew Bogle. Born a slave Bogle grew up on a Jamaican sugar plantation, but was brought to England to become a manservant in his then-master’s household. The lives of Eliza and Andrew become unexpectedly intertwined, raising questions about freedom, self-delusion, storytelling and the nature of truth. Smith’s novel moves between England and Jamaica, shifting restlessly back and forth in time to tell Eliza and Andrew’s stories. The result is very readable but didn’t entirely work for me. The histories Smith uncovers are fascinating and important but I found the narrative’s episodic structure distracting, sometimes threatening to overwhelm or obscure its central themes and ultimate purpose. However, Bogle and Eliza were compelling characters and there were several memorably powerful episodes: particularly Smith’s vivid reimagining of slavery-era Jamaica.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Hamish Hamilton for an ARC

I wanted to love this book- I was so excited about it! I’m sure it will fly off the shelves when released, but I can’t help wondering if it would be as popular with a lesser known author, I enjoyed some of the characters but it felt very long winded in parts. I read it after another new historical fiction that was much more engaging. It felt like this book wanted to pull off in many directions but that left me lacking connection with the story. I was really interested in the female protagonist but not much Me Bogle.

I must admit that I struggled with this novel. This feels like one of those books that are very well written, you can appreciate the quality of the writing but you don’t enjoy reading it. Zadie Smith is a great writer - I was quite keen on reading The Fraud as the premise was quite intriguing… There are three main interconnected storylines (Eliza Touchet, the Tichborne trial and the story of Andrew Bogle). Eliza is an interesting and atypical character for those times; the trial seemed quite promising and there were some embers of a good story of Andrew Bogle. But none of these stories lead anywhere. It was all so… dull… “The truth is, fiction is made by interesting characters”, says Mrs. Touchet and I really thought this would be a great read, but it turned out to be quite disappointing, “a book almost as dull as the reign of Queen Anne herself”. I feel guilty for using Zadie Smith’s own words to describe the book, but I do feel that it’s very representative. I almost did not finish it, which is almost never the case for me.

Smith’s first foray into historical fiction centres around three storylines. The first is that of Eliza Touchet, cousin, live in housekeeper and sometimes lover of Victorian author William Ainsworth. Ainsworth himself is involved with and hosts a number of dinners with many great literary names of the day. In particular, Charles Dickens (whom Eliza has a love / hate relationship with) and George Cruikshank (who is increasingly concerned with exposing Ainsworth as a fraud).

Eliza - secretly - becomes enamoured with Andrew Bogle, witness for the Claimant. Andrew Bogle grew up on a sugar plantation in Jamaica, before being brought to England with plantation manager Edward Tichborne. Andrew’s narrative tells the story of his father’s early life in Africa, to the current plight of his children in England, recounting in detail the horrors of life on a plantation.

The final storyline is of the Claimant himself. Roger Tichborne, believed dead, made himself known to his family - and their large fortune - having spent many years living as Thomas Castro in Australia.

However, while accepted by Lady Tichborne, other members of the family were highly dubious about his identity - and it became strongly suspected that Roger Tichborne was in fact Arthur Orton, a butcher’s son from Wapping. This narrative strand is largely told through Eliza’s fascination with the court case and her “lady’s trips” with Ainsworth’s second wife, working class Sarah, to watch the trial.

The major characters in The Fraud are all historical figures, albeit Smith has played around with timelines in some cases.

With three interwoven storylines, a host of clearly very well researched information, and a relatively large array of characters each with their own political agendas, you’d expect The Fraud would be a bit of a slog. You’d be wrong.

Smith’s chapters are very short, meaning that the reader is never bogged down and I found the historical information was woven through the book seamlessly. Equally the narrative voices are strong and distinct and carry the reader along. I found Arthur Bogle’s story especially compelling.

Eliza, as our main character, was a delight. By turns caring, stern, cold and increasingly awkward with age, she is a proto-feminist and abolitionist who stumbles through a number of moments of utter blindness towards her own privilege - when faced for example with Sarah’s childhood of abject poverty or Bogle’s son’s commentary regarding Eliza’s relative freedom to move through the world as a wealthy white woman.

But we don’t lose sympathy for any characters in The Fraud even when they’re showing us the worst aspects of themselves.

One of the questions the novel poses is - who is the titular Fraud? And - well - it’s everyone. Questions of authenticity, moral fortitude and of truth touch all of the characters in one way or another. Eliza asks about Dickens, “Was he really so good or did he only want to be seen to be good? Does it matter?” She later notes of the Claimant, “How he lies to tell the truth”. And for me these are central ideas of the book. We each live our own deceptions in order to survive, so what then - really - is the truth? How often can our actions really stand up to scrutiny? Does it matter?

The Fraud isn’t necessarily an easy book to read, given some of its subject matter. But I am glad to have read it, and to have seen life through Mrs Touchet’s eyes for a while.

I was so excited to read this book but I'm afraid we were not a good match. I got half way through and had to call it quits. I have never done that before with a Netgalley book, but it was clear there would be no change in what was left in the book from what had already happened.

The book starts promising with an interesting and lively character in Mrs Trouchet. But is short lived and the story progresses in such a way as to leave you wondering what is it about and why telling it in this particular manner makes sense? I found myself unbearably bored. The dual stories of Mrs Trouchet and her family continues to run parallel to that of the Trichbourne case, rather than intersecting and thus adding some purpose or tension to the narrative. I am still unsure what o E has to do with the other or why either story is being told.

For all that you are still very aware you are reading the work of a singularly accomplished writer in Smith and her word work is enjoyable in and if itself.

While this book didn't work for me I think it could be just the thing for others.

I feel so bad for the low rating, but I really really struggled with this read. I genuinely dreaded picking it up.

Whilst there are moments of clear, sarcastic wit, from the main characters perspective which I enjoyed, I’m afraid I found the novel entirely lacking in cohesion and direction.

The writing was good, there was observational humour and exploration of heavy topics, however, I do feel as though this book would benefit from further editing to sharpen up what could be an insightful and important historical novel.

I have read a few on Smith's novels and really enjoyed them. I was really excited about the premise of this book, but it fell a bit flat for me. I'm sure if you like historical fiction, this will be for you.

This was a book I was so looking forward to but sadly I really struggled with it and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I liked the premise of the read and the writing was excellent but i didn’t seem to be able to connect with the characters at all but maybe that was just me and just not the book for me as I am sure others will read and enjoy it as it’s extremely well researched.
I did finish the book as I wanted to know how it would all end and overall I would give it 3 stars.
My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General Uk for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

The authors first novel that delves into historical fiction, it wasn't for me unfortunately. It felt very stiff and I found it jarring because I have known Smith to write with great passion in her other works. I'm sure others will enjoy!

The Fraud is Zadie Smith’s first foray into historical fiction. As a slice of history, it’s brilliant - thoroughly researched and contextualised, she brings the Victorian era to life. She narrates with wit and draws her characters with a Dickensian eye. In many ways the main protagonist Mrs Touchet is the quintessential liberal white woman: penetrating in her criticism of others, but ultimately lacking in self-awareness.

However, as a story it’s slightly less successful. While at times it’s genuinely riveting, it’s too often confused and meandering, over-labouring its themes and allusions. You know exactly where it’s headed but it seems to take an awful long time to get there.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith
I was keen to read this novel having really enjoyed others by Zadie Smith but I found the novel a struggle to complete. It is brilliantly well researched and is centred around the infamous case of the Tichborne Claimant which was the subject of a film in 1998. The novel looks at events mainly from the viewpoint of Eliza Touchet, a widow, who is a housekeeper to her cousin who was an author of historical fiction. Eliza and Sarah, William’s young wife, become fascinated by the Tichborne case but for very different reasons. Sarah is convinced by the claimant and his story is supported by Bogle a man born into slavery.
Characters such as Dickens and Thackery make frequent appearances in the novel and we get a very detailed picture of the Victorian literary scene. Despite the fact that the novel is very well written I became confused by the vast array of characters and the changes in time which aren’t always well signposted. I did finish the book but would not say I found it compelling.
Many thanks to the author, the publisher and Net Galley for the opportunity to read it in return for an honest review.

I'm a huge fan of Zadie Smith and I thought this was her best novel in years - it's long and fairly complex (a lot of shifting perspectives across a long timespan) but it's so engaging and easy to read. I was immediately drawn in and I loved the richly drawn central characters (I had no idea until the afterword that many of them were real people but the fictional and the real blend together seamlessly).

There are very important themes explored here but with a real light touch and I struggled to put this book down at bedtime - the very short chapters always left me wanting one more! Highly recommended and thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Zadie Smiths first foray into historical fiction was a absolute smash hit for me.
It's clear she has studied 19th century literature, she knows the nuances and ways they constructed their novels and emulated in a masterful way. Even from the brilliantly named chapters (I love chapters with names, more of them please!) it all felt very authentic.
Eliza Touchet was a fascinating narrator and person to follow. Her relationships with William and Frances I was so intrigued by and I would have liked more of their lives together when they were younger rather than a few flashbacks but I understand why we were more rooted in the presence with the trial storyline.
I had heard of the infamous trial and found it so interesting seeing the mania it created and how it forged relationships and friendships amongst people who ordinarily wouldn't have interacted. Elizas relationship and obsession with Bogle was deftly done. Eliza fully supports abolition and sees herself slightly morally superior yet still doesn't fully grasp the difficulties black people suffered. She almost has a perverse obsession with Bogle and seems to feel a sense of entitlement to force her way in. The discussion she has with his son really beautifully highlighted her inconsistencies and hypocrisy.
Just a fantastic read I can't recommend more

There was a lot to like about The Fraud - the parts of history that Zadie Smith has chosen to write about, the Tichborne case and the authors/literature of the time, were interesting, and Eliza is a great narrator with a fantastic and funny internal voice.

However it left me a little cold and I found myself wanting it to 'go somewhere'.

Overall I enjoyed it, thank you to the publisher and author for the ARC

Zadie Smith writes a thought provoking, stylish, and heavily researched historical novel, a fascinating blend of fact and fiction, inhabited by many real life characters of the Victorian era, examining and challenging identity, fraud, class inequality, society, colonialism, race, gender, the true realities of slavery, sexuality, self perception, and freedom. A novel of short chapters, some merely a paragraph, there are a few threads, we have the widowed Scottish Eliza Touchet, housekeeper to well known author, William Harrison Ainsworth, she is attending a headline grabbing trial with Ainsworth's young working class wife, Sarah, both becoming deeply immersed and engaged in the Tichborne Trial setting out to determine whether a man can really be the Sir Roger Tichborne that he is claiming to be.

Touchet finds her attention particularly caught by the able, serious and intelligent William Bogle, his history as a slave on a Jamaican plantation, the impact he makes and who is the main supporting witness for the claimant. Bogle has an uneasy Touchet questioning where her wealth comes from, whilst Sarah underlines their class differences, tough issues for a Touchet who thinks of herself as a progressive woman. This is complex storytelling that covers many of the main events of the time, and that looks at the frauds and hypocrisies of Victorian society, and the blindness to be found when it comes to belief and self perceptions.

What I really enjoyed was how Smith infused the narrative with humour and wit, her portrayal of the literary circles at times was both fun and amusing. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC

The Fraud, Zadie Smith's first foray into historical fiction, sets out to weave together a trio of disparate, somewhat interconnected narratives in order to tell a story of class, race and gender in 19th century England, and how the faces which we choose to show to the world (or else are compelled to show) are not necessarily reflective of our true selves. It is an ambitious, sweeping novel, but ultimately failed to live up to an exciting premise.

Initially we are introduced to Eliza Touchet, a formidable widow whose life has ended up bound to the uncertain fortunes of her cousin by marriage, novelist William Ainsworth. Through Mrs Touchet, whose views on subjects such as the abolition of slavery and women's independence are unusually progressive for the time, Smith highlights the deeply entrenched inequities which persisted in British society at the time. Some of the strongest parts of the novel highlight the real-life hypocrisy of renowned philanthropist Charles Dickens advocating for the poor at home while vocally dismissing the plight of enslaved Africans in the British colonies, and of famed abolitionist William Wilberforce living comfortably on his family's sugar fortune. Moreover, modern readers will empathise with Mrs Touchet's exasperation at her cousin and his friends' and family's failure to show any compassion for the slaves - surely a precusor to the kind of conversations so many of us have had with wilfully ignorant strangers in Facebook comment sections. Mrs Touchet is a likeable, interesting protagonist, and I was initially intrigued to follow her life story chronologically, before I realised this was not going to happen.

The other two stories focus on the Tichborne case, a source of contemporary fascination whereby a man surfaced claiming to be the long-lost heir to the aristocratic Tichborne family, as well as Andrew Bogle, a freed man who was a crucial witness at the Tichborne trial. Unfortunately, the real failure of this novel for me was that the three stories meandered with little momentum or traditional narrative structure and didn't ever reach the kind of synergy I had expected from a writer of Smith's talents. Mrs Touchet's story is interspersed with anecdotes about the trial and the polarised public reaction to it, but there is no apparent pattern or logic to their inclusion, and her story is hard enough to sustain interest in already, leaping and bounding backwards and forwards as it does between various episodes in her life, many of which seem totally insignificant. In several of these chapters, which often recount visits Mrs Touchet made with her cousin or people who visited them, Mrs Touchet herself feels like a proxy for the reader as she inwardly rolls her eyes at the self-indulgent ramblings of these 'awful people', ramblings which we too have to suffer through. Mrs Touchet has borne more than her share of loss and hardship over the course of her life, but because of the non-linear way in which her story is presented, I never felt very invested in anything that happened to her, which was just as well because the next time an event or relationship would be referenced it would likely be from a perspective of twenty years after it occurred.

The Fraud is a long book and it feels it, due to the lack of any real forward momentum or narrative tension. It has undoubtedly been fastidiously researched, and some of the historical content is interesting and thought-provoking, but rather than contexualising and deepening the story, a lot of the historical information Smith includes only serves to stultify an already achingly slow narrative.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin General UK for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

In a word, disappointing.
I am, I suppose, glad that I persevered and finished it - I had thought to give up around the 150-page mark, but my respect for Smith as a writer made me forge on. And, certainly, the narrative of Andrew Bogle perked things up a bit, and gave the reader a break from the self-indulgence of the main narrator, but overall, Smith tried to pack way too much into the book and hang it all together with a theme of fraudulence and self-delusions.
The writing itself was very good, the prose was evocative, witty, pertinent and empathetic, but somehow (perhaps it was the extreme brevity of the chapters, albeit this often seemed like a blessing) one was left feeling short-changed, as if the author had (as indeed she definitely had) done wonderful historical research, and needed to hang an explanation on the various notes she had made throughout, but was often caught for the imagination to pad out a scene. The only time she waxed in any way lyrical, and seemed more confident, was in the story of Andrew Bogle; one wonders, then, why she bothered at all with Mrs Eliza Touchet, who ends up being a rather humdrum and humbug heroine.
The Fraud is ostensibly a book about William Ainsworth, a not-deservedly once-famous author, intermingled with the trial of a claimant to the Tichborne estates (long-lost heir etc), but Smith attempts to shoehorn in all of the ills of of the day, slavery (of course), the cause of women, poverty and the class divide, the Corn Laws, the Peterloo massacre, the extreme social unrest caused by the advance of industriaisation, capitalism, social injustice of every kind, the Irish question, lesbianism, true love, parenting, religion, and the kitchen sink. Even the story of the wonderful Bogle ends up disappointing - his life story (as allegedly told to Touchet, but then he never speaks personally to her again) is rather in contrast to the pathetic creature who remains steadfastly loyal to an obvious imposter.
Mainly, I think, I grew hugely irritated with Touchet; any sympathy for her situation (which, as Ainsworth's new, common, wife Sarah, was at pains to point out, was not at all as bad as it could have been) was quickly lost in the mire of her contradictions. The great love of her life was Frances, Ainsworth's first wife, yet this does not stop her "loving" Ainsworth - and having quite a frisky sex life with him; she is critical of all those around her, particularly the famous writers of the day, but this penetration is never applied to herself - and the only reason such a character would lose herself so completely over a ridiculous sensationalist story like that of Tichborne is in the cause of the narrative arc. One is left to wonder if the patronising gentlemen of the day are not correct, and women should not be allowed the vote, being as they are impaired by their hormones.
Of course, Smith wants us to see all the frauds in the story, and question ourselves as much as them - and the book will leave you unsettled, just as good story told by a great author should do. But I am not sure that the historical novel is Smith's forte, and if the theme was self-delusion, then it could as easly have been set in any other place or at any other time, and - quite frankly- the unfulfilled Victorian gentlelady trope has been done better by others before now.
My thanks to Netgalley for the ARC, all opinions are my own.