A Factory Of Cunning

"A squelchingly well-researched period piece with sex, lust, overripeness and what one character calls the 'odour' of the scholar permeating every paragraph. It is also . . . a remarkable tour de force, jampacked with poetry, verbal fireworks, vitality and charm."--"The Spectator "[UK] "The pages of this unscrupulous story are lined with lace, silk and muslin -- all of it stitched together in a fabric of shimmering deceit."-- "The Washington Post Book World" In this elaborate and finely woven novel set in 18th Century London, Mrs. Fox, a French noblewoman with a scandalous past, squares off against Earl Much, a debauched British aristocrat, in a battle of will and deceit that will claim many casualties along the way. Intent on improving her station in Georgian society, Mrs. Fox trades upon her considerable powers of wit and seduction in order to profit from the appetites of men. Her rival, however, is a crafty and resourceful man who has devoted his life to collecting priceless objects and ruining young women, and he will not be so easily beaten. Reminiscent of the world brought to life in "Dangerous Liaisons," "A Factory of Cunning" is seductive, calculating, and thoroughly entertaining. Philippa Stockley studied English at Oxford and period costume history at the Courtauld Institute. She produced her first illustrated novel at six and her first stage design at ten. A professional painter and designer, as well as an editor at the Evening Standard, she lives in London.

Set in late eighteenth-century England, Philippa Stockley's American debut gives us a wickedly delightful but deadly serious battle of the wills and the sexes. It begins with the arrival in London of the mysterious Mrs. Fox--on the run from a scandalous French past--who takes a new identity, determined to reinvent herself. She must pit her formidable skills for revenge against Earl Much, a British aristocrat with no less notorious a past and easily her match in sinfulness and intrigue. Between these two swirls a story featuring venal lords, wronged maidens, and reprobate clergymen, transporting readers from bawdy houses to country estates--places where the pleasures of the flesh are both high comedy and serious business. "A Factory of Cunning" takes readers to the world immortal-ized in "Dangerous Liaisons." And, like Michel Faber's "The Crimson Petal and the White," the vividly rendered setting and characters give the thrill of a fresh discovery.