A Factory of Cunning - first US edition

by Phillipa Stockley

This story follows an exiled French aristocrat as she pimps and swindles her way through London in the summer of 1784. Having been routed from Paris by a mob (for her involvement in a scandal), our resourceful heroine set herself up as a brothel keeper in Amsterdam, hiding behind her faithful but almost equally heartless servant Victoire. When the marquise's past misdeeds pursue her in the form of an assassin, she and Victoire flee for the English capital, where she assumes the name "Mrs. Fox" for reasons too ribald to reveal here. The truth about any character or event is never what one expects, despite arch foreshadowing, and the reader is unprepared for the shocking denouement, which carries echoes of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Book has cream-white boards quarter bound in maroon cloth; marbled end papers.

Dust wrapper is price-intact at $25.00