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A Respectable Trade [Large Print] (Hardcover)

by Philippa Gregory (Author)

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 515 pages
Publisher: G K Hall; Large type edition edition (June 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0745179207
ISBN-13: 978-0745179209

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #1,026,676 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

This moral spellbinder, set in Bristol, England, in the slave-trading 1780s, is being freshly issued a decade after publication Although the sentences are not as fine as in Gregory's current work (The Other Boleyn Girl etc.), and the plot takes some awkward leaps, the book brilliantly shocks the conscience with its intimate and unsparing portrait of slavery. It's a romance, but not a sentimental one, built around the impossible love between white slave owner Frances Scott Cole and the black African Mehuru, a priest and adviser to his king before being kidnapped and designated as property. A strength of the book is that although Gregory, as usual, makes us feel the second-class status of 18th century women, she draws no cheap comparison between Frances's status as silk-clad chattel (to her gaspingly ambitious slave-trader husband, Josiah's) and the rigors and terrors of a black slave's life. Superb portraits abound, especially that of Josiah's sister, Sarah, a cranky spinster who makes poetry of her pride in being a member of the trading class, eagle-eyed at the account books. Gregory's vivid portrait leaves one feeling complicit; as the abolitionist Doctor Hadley notes: "the cruelty we have learned will poison us forever."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Book Description

The devastating consequences of the slave trade in 18th century Bristol are explored through the powerful but impossible attraction of well-born Frances and her Yoruban slave, Mehuru.
Bristol in 1787 is booming, from its stinking docks to its elegant new houses. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs ready cash and a well-connected wife.

An arranged marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah's protection, Frances enters the world of the Bristol merchants and finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar, rum and slaves.

Once again Philippa Gregory brings her unique combination of a vivid sense of history and inimitable storytelling skills to illuminate a complex period of our past. Powerful, haunting, intensely disturbing, this is a novel of desire and shame, of individuals, of a society, and of a whole continent devastated by the greed of others.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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3.0 out of 5 stars A FORBIDDEN PASSION..., Oct 7 2009

By	Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This review is from: A Respectable Trade (Paperback)

This is an intriguing book by the author, with a story line that is simple enough. Frances Scott, an impoverished thirty-four year old, gently reared daughter of a cleric, is left to fend for herself by her dead father. Her uncle, Lord Scott, has been assisting her and has found her work as a governess, a job that she loathes. When an upstart tradesman, Josiah Cole, proposes matrimony, she jumps at the chance. It is a marriage of the utmost convenience.

What she does not know is that her husband and his spinster sister, Sarah, trade in slaves, as well as other commodities. When a shipment of slaves comes in, Frances is expected to train the slaves to be servants that can then be sold to wealthy families. After all, having an African servant was all the rage in late eighteenth century England. Her instruction of her captives is a slow process, giving Frances an opportunity to get to know her slaves and the cruelties that have been inflicted upon them. She is, however, without resources to help them.

Along the way, she falls in love with Mehuru, her major domo, and he with her. Therein lies the rub. In eighteenth century England, it was unheard of for a lady of gentle breeding to do so, and Frances has not the strength to follow her heart. Meanwhile, her ambitious husband is oblivious to all that is going on in his household, and involves himself in one scheme after another, trusting on some new found friendships that are suspicious at best. When he finds that his "friends" have merely taken him for a ride, all hell breaks loose.

Much of the dialogue between Frances and Mehuru is pretty laughable, reading like a bad Harlequin romance. Their love affair simply does not ring true. Moreover, the characters in the book are too one dimensional and are pretty much caricatures. Overall, the book is a choppy, uneven affair, but a still a moderately enjoyable one, if one is a fan of the author. Others may not be so forgiving. Still, there are parts of the book that are somewhat interesting, and I was sufficiently intrigued to get the Masterpiece Theatre production of the book for which the author herself wrote the screenplay.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Read, April 9 2008

By	Amber Willis "Amber" (Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Respectable Trade (Paperback)

This was an enjoyable, light read. It brought to light some of the many issues surrounding the slave trade. This book was well written and the characters came alive while reading.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Well-researched historical novel, Jul 4 2007

By	Shirwan A. Mirza (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Respectable Trade (Paperback)

This is one of my favorite books. In addition to being an enjoable read,, one would learn well-researched historical facts about slave trade that deprived Africa of its sons and daughters of talents.
Its consequences could be seen even today. This book lends a human dimension to this historical tragedy. We hear the slaves telling their stories around the kitchen table of their masters. We hear their cries, their laughter, their longing for their families and their homeland. The novel also shows the shallow thinking of those slave masters. Even the protagonist of the story, who is supposed to be a sympathetic figure, is superficial in her thinking and even hypocritical.
She wanted to have it all: wealth, status, and empty aristocratic titles. Then she sought love and lust from the very people she enslaved and stripped from basic human rights including the right to have non-English names; and she insisted on keeping them slaves up to the very end. The African man is a great personality. He shocked his masters with his intelligence and wisdom and the speed with which he excelled in their language.
He drew strength from the memories of his homeland. He drew warmth from the bright sun shining in the sky of his hometown while suffering the dark clouds of his new life.

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