The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

Scottish author Tey explores one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of all time: the murder of Richard III's two young nephews and heirs to the throne. In this enduring novel written in 1951, a painting of Richard III catches the interest of Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant while he's laid up in hospital and bored to tears. The inspector, something of an expert on faces, "lay a long time looking at that face, at those extraordinary eyes." He muses, "I can't remember any murderers, either in my own experience, or in case-histories, who resemble him." Tey provides readers with an enthralling blend of fact and fiction.
--1001 Books for Every Mood

Readers Guide by Roberta Harold

Overview

Armchair detectives are one thing, but hospital-bed detectives are few and far between. In Josephine Tey’s witty, elegantly written and most famous novel, the last of seven published before her death, Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant has been flat on his back for weeks after being injured in pursuit of a criminal.

Grant’s actress friend Marta Hallard saves his sanity with a portrait collection of figures at the center of history’s greatest unsolved mysteries. The homicide detective, whose interest in faces has provided him with “both a private entertainment and a professional advantage,” is riveted by a portrait of King Richard III, known to history as the usurper and murderer of his nephews, the Princes in the Tower.

To Grant, Richard doesn’t look like Shakespeare’s murderous hunchback. He decides to investigate the matter as if it were a contemporary criminal case, deputizing Brent Carradine, a “woolly lamb” of a young American scholar, to do the legwork.

Puzzled by the dearth of contemporary evidence of Richard’s guilt, the two dredge up documents from the period and accounts by later historians, cross-checking dates and events against one another and finding that some of the most respected historical accounts of the Princes’ fate are based on surmises, conjectures, prejudices and political interests. Where Richard III is concerned, very little is what it seems. But does that make him innocent or guilty?

One thing is certain: Grant’s investigation of Richard’s case speeds the detective’s return to physical (and mental!) health, and gets him back on his game. The results are entertaining, engaging, and illuminating.

Discussion Questions

1. The deaths of the Princes in the Tower may be the ultimate “cold case file.” Inspector Grant sets out to disregard popularly accepted versions of the story and start from ‘scratch,’ a sort of ‘just the facts, ma’am’ approach. How do you think the mid-20th century Grant’s investigation resembles or differs from the approach a 21st-century detective—fictional or otherwise— might take to a “cold” homicide case?

2. Grant infers a great deal from his first sight of Richard’s portrait: “Someone used to great responsibility…too conscientious…the look one sees on the face of a crippled child,” and so forth. In light of the initial, subjective impressions he forms from looking at the portrait, how well do you think Grant maintains an investigator’s objectivity in going about his investigation of Richard’s guilt or innocence?

3. Grant makes some assertions about female psychology that would seem stereotypical today: “Mary Stuart was six feet tall. Nearly all out-size women are sexually cold. Ask any doctor.” How fully realized or stereotypical are the book’s contemporary female characters: The Midget, The Amazon, Mrs. Tinker, Matron, and Marta? Do you think the portrayals of female characters “date” the book?

4. Tey presents a large volume of historical and documentary evidence to the reader via Grant’s and Carradine’s discussions about their investigations. How well do you think she strikes the balance between, on the one hand, making her case about Richard’s role in the deaths of the Princes and, on the other, entertaining the reader with the story of solving the mystery? What are some of the ways she does this?

5. Many people who have never read a scholarly work about Richard III and the fate of the Princes are familiar with the controversy from reading The Daughter of Time, which is even cited by professional historians for the thorough but concise case it presents. Did you find this book primarily a “good read” in the murder mystery tradition, or more of a history book?

6. A contemporary detective might look for DNA evidence—unknown in either Richard’s or Grant’s time—in connection with the skeletons found in the Tower. Based on the information presented in this book, what unanswered questions about the fate of the Princes do you think DNA evidence might and might not resolve?

7. What do we learn about Grant as a character from his reactions in the opening chapter to the various books his friends have brought by, and to the historical figures he discusses with his friend Marta?

8. By the end of the book, Grant and Carradine come to a particular set of conclusions. Do you think those conclusions are justified based on the evidence that’s been presented to them—and to readers—in the course of the book?

9. From a historian’s perspective, do you think Tey has “played fair” with the historical information?

10. How well developed as literary characters were the key historical figures in the story—Richard himself, his brothers Edward IV and Clarence, Elizabeth Woodville, Thomas More, etc.—in comparison with Tey’s contemporary characters such as Grant and Carradine?

11. Given that she was dealing with historical events and documents rather than a purely fictional murder plot, how good a job do you think Tey did in this novel with the issues of pacing and suspense that are typically central to our enjoyment of a classic murder mystery?

About the Author

The reclusive Elizabeth Mackintosh, who used the pen names Gordon Daviot for her plays and Josephine Tey for her Inspector Grant mystery series, was born in Inverness, Scotland in 1896. A devotee of gymnastics and physical training who preferred turning somersaults in the gym to sitting in class, she studied at the Anstey Physical Training College in Birmingham, England and spent several years in England and Scotland as a teacher of physical training (phys. ed. in modern American parlance).

The death of her mother brought Mackintosh home to care full-time for her invalid father and provided the opportunity to pursue her interest in writing. Her first major success as a playwright came with Richard of Bordeaux, which presents Richard II of England as a visionary pacifist rather than the weak ruler portrayed by Shakespeare. It ran in London’s West End for fourteen months. She frequently used historical characters and stories as the basis for both her plays and her mystery stories.

The Inspector Grant series began in 1929 with The Man in the Queue and continued through seven more novels to the posthumously published Singing Sands. The eminent actor John Gielgud, who starred in Richard, said that “all the work she published under the name of Gordon Daviot [her plays] was particularly dear to her, while her novels and other books, some of them published with great success under the name Josephine Tey, she would refer to as her 'yearly knitting', as if they were of little account to her." In The Daughter
of Time, she makes a sly reference to a playwright working on "one of her awful detective stories."

Mackintosh, who loved good food and wine, horse-racing, and movies, had an amateur’s interest in psychology and conferred her interest in reading faces, as well as handwriting analysis, on her Inspector Grant and other sleuth characters. She herself, however, remained an enigma, even after the fame her plays brought her, dying at 55 in 1952 after a long illness and soon after the publication of this novel, unknown even to those few who knew her well. Gielgud, one of the circle of actors who comprised her closest acquaintances, summed her up in this fashion: "…a strange character, proud without being arrogant, and obstinate, though not conceited.”

If You Liked This...

Here are other books by Josephine Tey:

A Shilling for Candles
Miss Pym Disposes
The Singing Sands

More mysteries with similar themes or context:

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
The Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters
The Devil in Velvet by John Dickson Carr
The Nick Revill series by Philip Gooden (a young actor in Shakespeare’s troupe, with cameos by the Bard)

And of course

Shakespeare's play Richard III

For the historian's view of RIchard III:

Richard III and the Princes in the Tower by A. J. Pollard
Richard III by Paul Murray Kendall

Roberta Harold

Roberta Harold lives in Montpelier, Vermont and belongs to two book groups, one focused on literary and the other on mystery fiction. She also belongs to A Room of Her Own (AROHO), a foundation to provide innovative and practical arts patronage to women. There are more readers guides on their web site. Roberta has written two historical mysteries set in Gilded Age New York, Washington, and Vermont and has adapted Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing (Big Whoop about Zip) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Midsummer City) in contemporary versions for high school and middle school players.