It is the summer of 1891 and London is simmering under an oppressive heatwave. The air is thick with tension and sexual repression. But another wave is about to rock the capital - one of morality - as Oliver Wheeler and the puritans of his London Vigilance Committee seek out perversion and aberrant behaviour in all its forms.
Judging Panel Fiction Uncovered 2011: ‘A fascinating portrait of the seamy underworld of London in 1891. Line by line Edric out-writes many better known novelists.’
1891. London is simmering in the oppressive summer heat, the air thick with sexual repression. But a wave of morality is about to rock the capital as the puritans of the London Vigilance Committee seek out perversion and aberrant behaviour in all its forms. Charles Webster, an impoverished photographer working at the Lyceum Theatre, has been sucked into a shadowy demi-monde which exists beneath the surface of civilized society. It is a world of pornographers and prostitutes, orchestrated by master manipulator Marlow, for whom Webster illicitly provides theatrical costumes for pornographic shoots. But knowledge of this enterprise has somehow reached the Lyceum's upright theatre manager, Bram Stoker, who suspects Webster's involvement. As the net tightens around Marlow and his cohorts and public outrage sweeps the city, a member of the aristocracy is accused of killing a child prostitute...
Robert Edric was born in 1956. His novels include Winter Garden (1985 James Tait Black Prize winner), A New Ice Age (1986 runner-up for the Guardian Fiction Prize), A Lunar Eclipse, The Earth Made of Glass, Elysium, In Desolate Heaven, The Sword Cabinet, The Book of the Heathen (shortlisted for the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award) and Peacetime (longlisted for the Booker Prize 2002). Cradle Song and Siren Song are the first books in the Song Cycle Trilogy, the final book, Swan Song, is now available from Doubleday.
