Description

Book Synopsis
From the bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl.Bristol in 1787 is booming, from its stinking docks to its elegant new houses. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs ready cash and a well-connected wife.An arranged marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah's protection, Frances enters the world of the Bristol merchants and finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar, rum and slaves.Once again Philippa Gregory brings her unique combination of a vivid sense of history and inimitable storytelling skills to illuminate a complex period of our past. Powerful, haunting, intensely disturbing, this is a novel of desire and shame, of individuals, of a society, and of a whole continent devastated by the greed of others.

Trade Review

‘The great roar and sweep of history is successfully braided into the intimate daily detail of this compelling and intelligent book’ Penny Perrick, THE TIMES

‘Philippa Gregory is a very good storyteller indeed’
SUNDAY TIMES

‘Subtle and exciting.’ Daily Express

‘Written from instinct, not out of calculation, and it shows.’
Peter Ackroyd, The Times

A Respectable Trade

    Product form

    A Paperback / softback by Philippa Gregory

    £10.44

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    RRP £10.99 – you save £0.55 (5%)

    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Fri 11 Sep 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher Harper Collins
      Imprint HarperCollins
      Published 4 March 1996
      ISBN-13 9780006473374
      978-0006473374
      ISBN-10 0006473377
      Also in:
      Books by Philippa Gregory

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      From the bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl.Bristol in 1787 is booming, from its stinking docks to its elegant new houses. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs ready cash and a well-connected wife.An arranged marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah's protection, Frances enters the world of the Bristol merchants and finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar, rum and slaves.Once again Philippa Gregory brings her unique combination of a vivid sense of history and inimitable storytelling skills to illuminate a complex period of our past. Powerful, haunting, intensely disturbing, this is a novel of desire and shame, of individuals, of a society, and of a whole continent devastated by the greed of others.

      Trade Review

      ‘The great roar and sweep of history is successfully braided into the intimate daily detail of this compelling and intelligent book’ Penny Perrick, THE TIMES

      ‘Philippa Gregory is a very good storyteller indeed’
      SUNDAY TIMES

      ‘Subtle and exciting.’ Daily Express

      ‘Written from instinct, not out of calculation, and it shows.’
      Peter Ackroyd, The Times

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