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The Daughter of Time | 
 enlarge | Author: Josephine Tey
Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD
Category: Book
List Price: £4.50
Buy Used: £0.33
You Save: £4.17 (93%)
Used (29) from £0.33
Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 442074
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0684803860
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780684803869
ASIN: 0684803860
Publication Date: November 20, 1995
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 Engaging, whimsical and concise March 18, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Leaving aside the 'did-he-didn't-he' element for a minute, the book as a whole is witty and Grant's nurses and visitors are all memorably characterised, with their own strengths to offer to the investigation - Marta the flamboyant actress, Carradine the besotted young "woolly lamb" of a researcher, clumsy, over-sensitive Nurse Darroll and her schoolbooks. I liked the cantankerous detective Grant, too - very much a man who gets frustrated and excited on his quest for justice, rather than the cool-as-a-cucumber silently-stroking-his-moustache type. The Daughter of Time is enjoyably written and not just a dry mystery or polemic.
I said 'did-he-didn't-he', but actually there's never really any serious question here of whether Richard had his nephews killed. The suspense is all in the discovering of what sort of a man Richard was, what really did happen to the Princes in the Tower, and how. The Daughter of Time is quite an infamous Ricardian novel, credited with changing many minds about Richard III and sparking life-long interests in him. To this day nobody can be sure exactly what he was like and what happened to the young princes. Tey's hypothesis, to the casual reader, is as good as any, though, in my opinion. It seems to add up to make a satisfying conclusion, although for all I know many a professional historian could prove it wrong.
It might help if you have already read up a little on Edward IV and Richard III, however. I had and I was glad of the background knowledge because it might otherwise have been a little hard to follow (to be fair, though, I'm the sort of reader who is constantly flipping back and forth in mystery novels and scratching my head). It's a short book with a fresh concept (even though it's now over 50 years old), so just the thing to divert and stimulate your mind on a summer's afternoon.
Was it Henry VII or Buckingham? January 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I believed everything in this book, but I already knew that Richard III probably hadn't killed the princes in the Tower. My daughter's reaction when I forced her to read this book was, "Well, it stinks, doesn't it?" That just about sums it all up. Shakespeare was writing for the Tudors don't forget and it was Elizabeth's grandfather who had the princes killed. There was a television programme where Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor "proved" it was Buckingham who dun it, but my money is on Josephine Tey.
Classic historical mystery October 28, 2007
Inspector Alan Grant solves the murder of the Princes in the Tower form his hospital bed in this classic 1950s mystery. I'm fascinated by Richard III and one of the reasons is my reading of this book over 25 years ago. I've read it many times since. I've read dozens of books about Richard, but every now and then, I like to go back to where it all began and enjoy rediscovering the charm this book has for me. The charm is in the assumption that most people had at that time of Richard's guilt, mostly through Olivier's portrayal of Richard in Shakespeare's play. Grant is upset when he mistakes a portrait of Richard, "The monster of nursery stories. The destroyer of innocence. A synonym for villainy." for that of a great judge, a too-conscientious perfectionist. He begins his quest for the truth about Richard because his pride is hurt that he could be wrong, but he finds that he may not be so wrong after all. What if history and all the historians were wrong instead?
History is written by the winners March 20, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Inspector Grant of the Scotland Yard is stuck in a hospital bed, recovering from a broken leg. Since he's interested in faces, his friend Marta brings him a stack of pictures, to cure him from the prickles of boredom he's suffering from. Grant becomes fascinated with a portrait of Richard III, one of the most notorious villains in history, most known for killing his nephews, the princes in the Tower. But can this man, who mostly resembles a judge, really be a heartless murderer. Quickly frustrated with the lack of contemporary source material, Grant and a young American scholar tries to solve this historical mystery.
All I knew about Richard III and the princes in the tower I got from Shakespeare's play, which is far from flattering for the king. The portrait painted of him in this book is very different. It's incredibly fascinating, but I'm not quite sure how seriously to take it. But the mix of mystery and history is fun, and it's a joy to read. Perhaps the most interesting part is the general discussion of how history is written by the victors.
An invitingly cosy 'who done it' that reads well for Richard III March 3, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
A beautifully clear and perhaps whimsical novel that is definitely not for the die-hard `Richard III was definitely guilty' brigade. The book is perhaps better in the hands of the lover of the 'who done it' transformed - with the story becoming a warm, inviting and perhaps relatively undemanding read, a read that is itself very representative of a more cosy, easy to understand yesteryear (it was written in the early fifties).
The novel's strength is the rather whimsical notion that a recuperating police officer, who is visually highly intuitive, has seen a portrait of Richard III from his hospital bed and he has decided that this cannot be the face of the murderer revealed by Shakespeare. However, it's this very whimsy that works so well, as it provides a most belevable human edge to the accompanying 1950s criminal detection procedure.
`The Daughter Of Time' ultimately convinces, charms and reassures. If you feel hopeful about Richard III's innocence, uneasy about the `black legend' soubriquet, and love a feel-good, pleasurable read, then I strongly recommend this work as perhaps a starting point. Indeed, the book's hidden strength may well be that once you have read it you will want to explore a lot more of the same genre. If you find something as charming then please let us all know.
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