The House of Sight and Shadow
By Nicholas Griffin
(Random House Trade Paperbacks, Paperback, 9780375759390, 320pp.)
Publication Date: April 9, 2002
Categories: Historical - General, Sea Stories
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Early eighteenth-century London, and two doctors are crisscrossing the boundaries of morality in the heady pursuit of scientific progress. This challenge leads Sir Edmund Calcraft, an eminent and notorious anatomist, and Joseph Bendix, his ambitious young student, into playing a dark game with the lawless side of English society. But Bendix’s growing passion for a woman he first glimpses in Calcraft’s house threatens to end their mutual quest.
From gallows to madhouses, from anatomical laboratories to a Frost Fair set on the frozen Thames, the two men compete in both head and heart. Mixing history, medical lore, and myth, The House of Sight and Shadow is a compelling tale about ambition, deception, and the fallibility of both love and reason.
Nicholas Griffin grew up in England and New York and wrote his first novel, The Requiem Shark, after genealogical research turned up a pirate in his family tree. He is at work on a third novel, also set in the eighteenth century, about a group of troublesome young Englishmen on a grand tour of Italy.
Praise for The House of Sight and Shadow
“Peopled with characters drawn with Dickensian relish, The House of Sight and Shadow is a most extraordinary love story and an entertaining dip into the denizens of London’s seamy underbelly.”
—Susan Vreeland, author of Girl in Hyacinth Blue
“This book has everything going for it: quirky characters, a cleverly convoluted plot, great repartee, and a lively period setting.”
—Boston Herald
“Refreshingly different . . . beautifully plotted . . . Griffin conjures up a London that is both distant and exotic, familiar and plausible.”
—The Independent on Sunday (London)
“A modern-day Poe . . . Griffin, who’s fast carving out a niche as an expert chronicler of eighteenth-century intrigue and adventure, [is] a writer to watch.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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