The Tichborne Claimant - by Rohan McWilliam (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The extraordinary case in 1874 of the Tichborne Claimant generated the longest trial, to that point, in British legal history. Was the stout man claiming to be the vanished Sir Roger Tichborne really who he said he was; or was he Arthur Orton, a butcher from Wagga Wagga in Australia? Was he the public school educated rightful heir to a landed estate or an ill-educated fraud? Why, if he was a fraud, had the dowager Lady Tichborne recognised him? And what was the truth about his tattoo?

The trial mesmerised the British public and led to furious debate, to the extent that several newspapers were devoted entirely to the case and a Tichbornite candidate won a seat in Parliament. The case divided the nation along political, religious and social lines, and the campaign for justice for the Claimant proved a focus for political activism between the defeat of the Chartists and rise of the Labour Party.

Review Quotes

""In each case an event or a figure that scholars had previously confined to passing references becomes a key to unlock the broadest possible understanding of their respective periods. Now, with Rohan McWilliam's rich book we can add the Tichborne imposture case to this (partial) list of episodes rescued from the indifference of posterity. But what makes this addition especially remarkable is the fact that the Tichborne story, unlike most others in this genre, is not simply an unnoticed backdoor key to the bigger picture. Rather, as McWilliam persuasively shows, it is itself the bigger picture." - Dror Wahrman, Victorian Studies, Winter 2008" --Dror Wahrman

""McWilliam argues that the Claimant's narrative can best be understood as a melodrama, a dramatic form then still in the mainstream of popular culture...In doing so, he has not only told us that story in its full delirious glory for the first time, but he has showed us how much "sense" it did make to contemporaries, and in doing so has made a genuinely important contribution to our understanding of popular consciousness-truly, a rescue of popular experience from the condescension of posterity." - Peter Mandler, H-Net Reviews, October 2007" --Peter Mandler, H' Net Review

"Rohan McWilliam's account goes further in unteasing the many strands of this baffling and delightfully ludicrous affair" --Sarah Wise, Literary Review

"Mentioned in Publishing News, October 2007" --Publishing News

""Despite the esteemed former Tablet editor Douglas Woodruff's fine book on the subject, published 50 years ago, this thoroughly researched biography ought to be the standard work on the matter for our times." Tablet, July 2007" --Tablet, The