This is the story of Victorian Britain's strangest religious sect and its wealthy, mainly female, followers who believed they could ascend directly to heaven without dying first. Henry James Prince was a rogue Anglican priest who founded the sect, he also claimed that he was immortal conduit of the Holy Spirit. Prince convinced his followers that they would never know illness or pain, and those who had no money could pay for their membership of the cult with their labour. Prince's death didn't mark the end of this strange sect, he was soon replaced by John Smyth-Pigott, he was known as the Clapton Messiah.

Drawing on primary sources to tell the story of this cult, many provided by Prince’s descendants, Flinders shines a light on the people drawn to the cult - the forced marriages; the swindled fortunes; the women who were condemned to asylums by their families in a bid to get them away from the cult.
I read this book because I had never heard of this cult, but there is nothing ‘Very British’ about it, the same methods of coercion and control are found in cults across the world.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read this book in exchange for a fair and full review.

This book fell flat for me unfortunately. I am interested in the whole cult phenomenon but this did not hold my attention.

Drawing on first hand accounts, news reports, family memoirs and court records author Stuart Flinders uncovers the story of a largely forgotten Victorian cult, and it’s a story that richly deserves to be told. I’d never heard of it and found the tale fascinating. A rogue Anglican priest called Henry James Prince founded the Agapemone, or The Abode of Love, claiming divine inspiration, and gathered around him a large and loyal following, mainly of young – and wealthy – women. After his death his place was taken by another rogue, John Hugh Smyth-Pigott, who went one step further and claimed to be Christ. He became known as the Clapton Messiah. The Agapemone, based in Somerset in the 1840s, became Prince’s fiefdom and all sort of shenanigans went on there, arousing the ire of many commentators, becoming a byword for licentiousness and depravity. I don’t quite see why the author calls it a particularly British cult, as such cults happen all over the world, usually follow the same pattern and are equally damaging for the adherents, but this one was indeed largely based in England, and its followers were largely British. Poor things. Many of the women were badly damaged by their involvement in the cult and their stories are sad ones. The last one died only in 1956. Well-researched and comprehensive, we owe a debt to Flinders for uncovering this hidden history. Occasionally the book felt a bit repetitive and occasionally lacked clarity, but overall I found it a compelling tale and one that deserves to be resurrected.

I had never heard of this cult before, and I found the history of it incredibly interesting. However, the writing itself was a little difficult to fully engage with. The beginning of the novel spends a lot of time jumping around timelines to explain history, whereas the middle and end feels very rushed. I can tell that a lot of research went into this and I did particularly enjoy the focus on women victims of the cult.