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The Hartlepool Monkey
  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407033495
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416

The Hartlepool Monkey

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The riotous tale of how a monkey was hanged as an enemy spy in eighteenth-century Hartlepool

When Simon Legris, a physician from Paris, returns from an expedition to Africa, he brings home a monkey that understands human speech and names him Jacques LeSinge. Utterly devoted to him, Jacques becomes his servant. While in the service of an ailing marquis, Legris receives some shattering hews -Jacques has been accused of molesting the aristocrat's wife and has been dismissed in disgrace.

After an audacious French Revolutionary plot goes wrong, Jacques stands in the dock in Hartlepool accused of espionage. Warrens, a lowly 'one-guinea brief' barrister, stands to defend him. In the greatest challenge of his career, he mounts a defence that asks: what makes a man?

A demonically witty digest of all things eighteenth-century, this is an eccentric and hugely entertaining début.
  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407033495
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416
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About the author

Sean Longley

Sean Longley is a one guinea brief. He lives in South London with his family.

SL

Praise for The Hartlepool Monkey

Sean Longley is a marvellous new talent. The Hartlepool Monkey had me gripped from beginning to end

Amanda Foreman, author of GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE

A sparkling debut...The possibilities for humour are obvious, but what impresses is the way the author has latched on to its serious potential. A beautifully told tale

Mail on Sunday

An imaginative first novel...comic and irreverent

The Times

This historical incident is rich material for a novel, and Longley attacks his subject with relish...Longley's period detail is spot-on, his style vivacious.

Guardian

Full of period colour, racy incident and simian heroism, it's hard to see how a reader could fail to be thrilled

Independent on Sunday
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