Arthur and George

352 pages

English language

Published July 7, 2005 by Jonathan Cape.

ISBN:
978-0-224-07703-3
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3 stars (1 review)

Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, and then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, George remains in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.

George Edjali's father is Indian, his mother Scottish. When the family begins to receive vicious anonymous letters, many about their son, they put it down to racial prejudice. They appeal to the police, to no less than the Chief Constable, but to their dismay he appears to suspect George of being the letters' author. Then someone starts slashing horses and livestock. Again the police seem to …

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Review of 'Arthur and George' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Damn, I really wanted to like this, because the material is so interesting. It was pretty absorbing, and then it seemed to get slower and slower and more oppressive, and then I got to the end and there was no real twist--it was almost pure biography with some psychological illumination and concrete sensation filled in.

Also, the characters were almost unrelievedly depressing. None of the liveliness of the Victorian Age, with 100% of the stultifying atmosphere.

It's very good for what it is, I just wanted a whole lot more joy and invention. This just didn't live for me. And I'm the one who reads Victorian church novels for entertainment.