The Mandarin's Fan

About the book

Rupert Ainsleigh fears losing Royabay, the ancestral home whose history includes an old abbot's curse. Major Tidman advises a wealthy marriage, but Rupert remains attached to Olivia Rayner, whose limited prospects offer little financial rescue. An advertisement concerning a valuable fan introduces another possible route through the difficulties surrounding them. Hume links the object to events in China and to a network of secrets that reaches into English households. Family legend, romantic opposition, and material motives repeatedly compete as explanations for what happens. The mystery's exotic trappings reflect the period's stereotypes of China, while its immediate engine is the familiar uncertainty of deciding which apparently trustworthy acquaintance possesses knowledge or interests that have been concealed from the others.

• Inheritance and secrecy
• Superstition and evidence
• Objects linking distant histories

Why read it

The contrast between Rupert's belief in family misfortune and Tidman's practical skepticism establishes competing ways to interpret the coming mystery.

English Digby, Long and Co. second edition of 1905