The Lambs of London

From the author of Chatterton and Shakespeare: A Biography comes a gripping novel set in London that re-imagines an infamous 19th-century Shakespeare forgery. Charles and Mary Lamb, who will in time achieve lasting fame as the authors of Tales from Shakespeare for Children, are still living at home, caring for their dotty and maddening parents. Reading Shakespeare is the siblings’ favorite reprieve, and they are delighted when an ambitious young bookseller comes into their lives claiming to possess a ‘lost’ Shakespearea play. Soon all of London is eagerly anticipating opening night of a star-studded production of the play not knowing that they have all been duped by charlatan and a fraud.

Peter Ackroyd (CBE) is a master of the historical novel: The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde won the Somerset Maugham Award; Hawksmoor was awarded both the Whitbread Novel of the Year and the Guardian Fiction Prize; and Chatterton was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent historical novels are The Clerkenwell Tales, The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, Milton in America, and The Plato Papers.