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Arthur & George

By: Julian Barnes
Narrated by: Homer Todiwala
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Publisher's summary

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2005.

A Richard and Judy Book Club Selection.

This novel is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's extraordinary real-life fight for justice. Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late 19th-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, and then a writer, George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age; George remains in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.

George Edjali's father is Indian, his mother Scottish. When the family begins to receive vicious anonymous letters, many about their son, they put it down to racial prejudice. They appeal to the police, to no less than the Chief Constable, but to their dismay he appears to suspect George of being the letters' author. Then someone starts slashing horses and livestock. Again the police seem to suspect the shy, aloof Birmingham solicitor. He is arrested and, on the flimsiest evidence, sent to trial, found guilty and sentenced to seven years' hard labour.

Arthur Conan Doyle, famous as the creator of the world's greatest detective, is mourning his first wife (having been chastely in love for 10 years with the woman who was to become his second) when he hears about the Edjali case. Incensed at this obvious miscarriage of justice, he is galvanised into trying to clear George's name. With a mixture of detailed research and vivid imagination, Julian Barnes brings to life not just this long-forgotten case but the inner lives of these two very different men.

©2019 Julian Barnes (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
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What listeners say about Arthur & George

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A remarkable piece of fiction and non-fiction fusion

I loved the biography of Sir Arthur C Doyle and the story of the life of George Edalji. The author fused them into a lovely fiction of what may have passed between them and their effect on each other. A beautiful book.

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Fun but

I loved Metroland. The humor was wonderful in that book. Also saw a movie based off one of his books that I liked so much that I Iooked for his writing. This book was much longer and not as good… in fact maybe they are two different authors!

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Very good

The narrator was great at the accents and was very good in general. Storyline was amazing. It was nice that the story follows two very different people, which helps explain the era very nice. :)

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Never Ignites

I gave up on this. A repetitious, dull book. What happened to the Julian Barnes I have found so engaging in the past?

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1 person found this helpful