The Scandal of the Century

Author Lisa Hilton
Narrator Emma Gregory
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 9 May 2024
Run Time 9 hours
Format Audio
Genre Biography and non-fiction prose, Biography: historical, political and military, Biography: writers, European history, History, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: plays and playwrights.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

This is The Scandal of the Century, the true story of the author Aphra Behn, who used a shocking love affair to create the first English novel . . .

London, 1682.

When Lady Henrietta Berkeley elopes with her sister’s husband, her subsequent capture and the lawsuit that follows tears through Restoration England as the scandal of the century.

But it also proves inspiration to one Aphra Behn – already condemned as a scarlet woman of loose morals – who pens a searing and outrageous bestseller based on Henrietta’s shocking affair.

The story of how and why Henrietta acted as she did, and how and why Behn came to write it becomes, in Lisa Hilton’s hands, a stunning portrait of two women attempting to smash the shackles enslaving their sex.

'Gloriously mind-boggling . . .This is a lively book, full of saucy millennial-type analogies' Spectator

©2024 Lisa Hilton (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

'A landmark book, a sweeping, scintillatingly original, exciting and game changing exploration of writer, spy, power player, lover Aphra Behn. Thrilling, scholarly, powerfully researched, this is Aphra as she's never been seen before. She bursts from the page, and Lisa Hilton brings to complex, unforgettable, vibrant life this fascinating woman and her unstable, dangerous times that have so much in common with ours'

Kate Williams, historian and author of Rival Queens: The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots

The Scandal of the Century allows Hilton to showcase her skill for both historical and detective work and compelling, evocative writing . . . [She] strides confidently into the conversation about Behn, dissecting existing biographies and cleverly constructing a thought-provoking and thrilling new theory of the writer's origins . . . A sparkling and eye-opening account . . . compelling to read [and] refreshingly transparent . . . Her fresh ideas could open up exciting paths for future scholars.

BBC History Magazine

'An enjoyable read . . . challenging - but always entertaining'

Literary Review

'The Scandal of the Century is an impressive short account of Behn and her secretive life . . . Engaging, ingenious, lively . . . Hilton skilfully narrates background material of the Restoration . . . it disentangles with skill the complicated and sensational tale of Henrietta and Grey . . . Hilton dramatizes vividly the transactional nature of emotional exchanges between the pair'

TLS

'Gloriously mind-boggling . . .This is a lively book, full of saucy millennial-type analogies . . . The Scandal of the Century zips along merrily enough and leaves one with a familiar, unanswerable question both about Henrietta Berkeley and her astonishing effrontery in court, and about Aphra Behn creating a career out of it. What on earth did these women think they could achieve when nothing showed them that anything at all was possible? The next time, it would be slightly easier'

Spectator

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