About this item
The extraordinary story of the Druce-Portland affair, one of the most notorious, tangled, and bizarre legal cases of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras In 1897 an elderly widow, Anna Maria Druce, made a strange request of the London Ecclesiastical Court: it was for the exhumation of the grave of her late father-in-law, T.C. Druce. Behind her application lay a sensational claim: that Druce had been none other than the eccentric and massively wealthy 5th Duke of Portland, and that the—now dead—Duke had faked the death of his alter ego. When opened, Anna Maria contended, Druce’s coffin would be found to be empty. And her children, therefore, were heirs to the Portland millions. The extraordinary legal case that followed would last for 10 years.
About the Author
Piu Eatwell is a writer based in Paris, France. She writes in a mixture of genres including fiction and non-fiction, historical true crime, and books about French lifestyle. Piu is the author of The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse, a historical true-life tale of intrigue set in Edwardian England which was shortlisted for the 2015 Readers' Choice Award. Her book exploring myths about the French, They Eat Horses, Don't They? The Truth About The French, was book of the week in the NY Times and The Times (UK) , and won the Next Generation Indie Award. F is for France continues similar themes on a more light-hearted note, in the form of a fun trivia book about France. Piu graduated from Oxford University 'summa cum laude', with a starred First Class degree. She subsequently worked as a lawyer in top litigation firms in the UK and France, and as a television producer for the BBC and other TV companies, including researching the acclaimed Channel 4 documentary Charles Manson: the Man who Killed the Sixties (in which she makes a guest appearance as a hippie in a wig) , and the ITV Southbank Show series, Cyberspace. Piu's latest book, Black Dahlia, Red Rose, presents a startling new solution to a notorious murder that took place in Los Angeles in 1947. Black Dahlia, Red Rose was published in 2017, the 70th anniversary year of the Dahlia murder, and was a Times Book of the Year. The book has been optioned for a TV documentary and drama. When not delving in history archives or writing about her adopted country, Piu lives in Paris and renovates dilapidated apartments. She is married with three children.
