Philippa Gregory - The Favoured Child

I raised my head and Ralph’s dark, understanding eyes met mine.

Ralph waited in silence for my decision.

‘Kill him,’ I said.

Ralph’s sweep of the knife was as clean as a butcher’s.

Meridon

Philippa Gregory

Meridon, the desolate Romany girl, is determined to escape the hard poverty of her childhood. Riding bareback in a travelling show, while her sister Dandy risks her life on the trapeze, Meridon dedicates herself to freeing them both from danger and want.

But Dandy – beautiful, impatient, thieving Dandy – grabs too much, too quickly. And Meridon finds herself alone, riding in bitter grief through the rich Sussex farmlands towards a house called Wideacre – which awaits the return of the last of the Laceys.

Sweeping, passionate, unique: Meridon completes Philippa Gregory’s bestselling trilogy which began with Wideacre and continued in The Favoured Child .

‘In other hands this would be a conventional historical romance. But Ms Gregory uses her historical knowledge of the haves and the have-nots of those times to weave a much more subtle and exciting story.’

Daily Express

ISBN 0 00 651463 4

Wideacre

Philippa Gregory

Wideacre Hall, set in the heart of the English countryside, is the ancestral home that Beatrice Lacey loves. But as a woman of the eighteenth century, she has no right of inheritance. Corrupted by a world that mistreats women, she sets out to corrupt others. Sexual and wilful, she believes that the only way to achieve control over Wideacre is through a series of horrible crimes, and no-one escapes the consequences of her need to possess the land.

‘The eighteenth-century woman is a neglected creature but, in the figure of her heroine, Philippa Gregory has defined a certain kind of witness…This is a novel written from instinct, not out of calculation, and it shows.’

PETER ACKROYD, The Times

‘For single mindedness, tempestuousness, passion, amorality, sensuality and plain old-fashioned evil, [Beatrice Lacey] knocks Scarlett O’Hara into short cotton socks.’

Evening Standard

ISBN 0 00 651461 8

The Favoured Child

Philippa Gregory is an established writer and broadcaster for radio and television. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. She has been widely praised for her historical novels, including Earthly Joys and A Respectable Trade (which she adapted for BBC Television), as well as her works of contemporary suspense. The Other Boleyn Girl won the Parker Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2002 and it has recently been adapted for BBC Television. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.

Visit www.PhilippaGregory.com for more information and www.AuthorTracker.co.uk for exclusive updates about Philippa Gregory.

By the Same Author

The Wideacre Trilogy

WIDEACRE

THE FAVOURED CHILD

MERIDON

Historical Novels

THE WISE WOMAN

FALLEN SKIES

A RESPECTABLE TRADE

EARTHLY JOYS

VIRGIN EARTH

Modern Novels

MRS HARTLEY AND THE GROWTH CENTRE

PERFECTLY CORRECT

THE LITTLE HOUSE

ZELDA’S CUT

Short Stories

BREAD AND CHOCOLATE

The Tudor Court Novels

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL

THE QUEEN’S FOOL

THE VIRGIN’S LOVER

THE CONSTANT PRINCESS

THE BOLEYN INHERITANCE

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

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This paperback edition 2001

3

First published in Great Britain by

Viking 1989

Copyright © Philippa Gregory Ltd 1989

The author asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © 1989 ISBN 9780007370139

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