Research Catalog

Title

The disappearing duke : the improbable tale of an eccentric English family / Tom Freeman-Keel and Andrew Crofts.

Author

Freeman-Keel, Tom.

Publication

New York : Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Crofts, Andrew, 1953-

Description

viii, 311 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

This volume reconstructs a century of controversy surrounding the Cavendish-Bentick families, culminating in one of the most bizarre and publicized cases the British courts have ever seen. A man steeped in layers of deliberately manufactured mystery, the fifth Duke of Portland -- unmarried and childless -- started life as Lord John Bentick, became the Marquess of Tichfield upon the suspicious death of his elder brother, and passed on his title to a cousin when he perished in 1879. But some claimed that he had forged a second identity as Thomas Druce, owner of the Baker Street Bazaar and subject of countless rumors about his secretive lifestyle throughout British high society. Druce allegedly died in 1864, but his burial produced suspicion when it was claimed his coffin was filled with lead rather than a corpse. When Druce's daughter-in-law surmised that he might have survived for 15 more years, she set out to shake the foundations of British society by proving that her son, Sidney Druce, was the rightful heir to the dukedom. In a legal battle straight out of Alice in Wonderland -- with accusations of madness, perjury, and even grave robbing -- the previously unassailable aristocratic establishment threatened to topple.

Subject

• Portland, William Henry Cavendish Scott Bentinck, Duke of, 1768-1854 > Fiction
• Cavendish family > Fiction
• Bentinck family > Fiction
• Aristocracy (Social class) > Fiction
• Inheritance and succession > Fiction
• Upper class families > Fiction
• Nobility > Fiction
• Great Britain > History > Victoria, 1837-1901 > Fiction

Genre/Form

• Domestic fiction.
• Historical fiction
• Domestic fiction
• Fiction
• History

Note

• Includes index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Trouble in the cemetery -- An uncomfortable childhood -- Increased expectations -- Sweet sixteen -- A proud father -- A man of mystery -- Enter Disraeli -- A death in the family -- The Duke Is dead, long live the Duke -- Going underground -- A pauper's grave -- The death of Mr. Druce -- Dr. Harmer and the madhouse -- A revelation -- Sidney's birthright -- Lifting the stones -- Revelation upon revelation -- George Hollamby's case -- Sensation upon sensation -- Great barristers in battle -- Opening the coffin -- The fate of the witnesses -- Return to the status quo -- The Dukes of Portland -- The main characters -- Timeline of the lives of the fifth Duke of Portland and Thomas Charles Druce.

ISBN

0786710454

LCCN

^^2002191187

OCLC

• 50912947
• SCSB-13392724

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library