The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey, has been called one of the greatest detective stories of all times.  It tells the story of a bedridden London detective in the 1950s who decides to spend his hospital time investigating the deaths of the nephews of Richard III.  He starts with the standard school text and the Shakespeare play, then moves to their source, an account by Sir Thomas More.  Upon figuring out that the More account was neither an eye-witness account nor politically unmotivated, the detective asks his volunteer “looker-upper” helper to track down contemporary documents.  He concludes….well, you’ll have to read it to find out.

Besides being a great detective story, the book provides lots of background on 15th century England.  It also raises fascinating questions about the sources of historical knowledge, the biases that arise when the victors write the history, and the construction of national stories.  The novel was written in 1951.

Mary Jo Bane