A Swindler's Progress : : Nobles and Convicts in the Age of Liberty / / Kirsten McKenzie.

In May 1835 in a Sydney courtroom, a slight, balding man named John Dow stood charged with forgery. The prisoner shocked the room by claiming he was Edward, Viscount Lascelles, eldest son of the powerful Earl of Harewood. The Crown alleged he was a confidence trickster and serial impostor. Was this...

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Bibliographic Details
Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP eBook Package Archive 1893-1999
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Place / Publishing House:Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2010]
©2010
Year of Publication:2010
Language:English
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource (368 p.)
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Other title:Frontmatter --
CONTENTS --
PROLOGUE: HIS LORDSHIP ON TRIAL --
PART ONE Arcadia --
Introduction --
1 ET IN ARCADIA EGO --
2 THE PRICE OF THE COUNTY --
PART TWO Ruin and disgrace --
3 HAREWOOD AT BAY ‘ --
4 THE LOST HEIR --
PART THREE Antipodes A --
5 A WILD AND DISTANT SHORE --
6 HIS LORDSHIP’S TOUR DE FORCE --
EPILOGUE: THE PLAY IS PLAYED OUT --
REFLECTIONS ON A SWINDLER’S PROGRESS --
NOTES --
REFERENCES --
INDEX --
Tafel
Summary:In May 1835 in a Sydney courtroom, a slight, balding man named John Dow stood charged with forgery. The prisoner shocked the room by claiming he was Edward, Viscount Lascelles, eldest son of the powerful Earl of Harewood. The Crown alleged he was a confidence trickster and serial impostor. Was this really the heir to one of Britain's most spectacular fortunes? Part Regency mystery, part imperial history, A Swindler's Progress is an engrossing tale of adventure and deceit across two worlds—British aristocrats and Australian felons—bound together in an emerging age of opportunity and individualism, where personal worth was battling power based on birth alone. The first historian to unravel the mystery of John Dow and Edward Lascelles, Kirsten McKenzie illuminates the darker side of this age of liberty, when freedom could mean the freedom to lie both in the far-flung outposts of empire and within the established bastions of British power. The struggles of the Lascelles family for social and political power, and the tragedy of their disgraced heir, demonstrate that British elites were as fragile as their colonial counterparts. In ways both personal and profound, McKenzie recreates a world in which Britain and the empire were intertwined in the transformation of status and politics in the nineteenth century.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9780674056695
9783110442212
DOI:10.4159/9780674056695?locatt=mode:legacy
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Kirsten McKenzie.