‘Brilliant’ Financial Times
‘Hollis expertly weaves together the human tragedy and high politics behind the explosion of one of the world’s greatest cities’ Dan Snow
The reclaimed history of a woman whose tragic life tells a story of madness, forced marriages and how the super-rich came to own London
June 1701, and a young widow wakes in a Paris hotel to find a man in her bed. Within hours they are married. Yet three weeks later, the bride flees to London and swears that she had never agreed to the wedding. So begins one of the most intriguing stories of madness, tragic passion and the curse of inheritance.
Inheritance charts the forgotten life of Mary Davies and the fate of the land that she inherited as a baby – land that would become the squares, wide streets and elegant homes of Mayfair, Belgravia, Kensington and Pimlico. From child brides and mad heiresses to religious controversy and shady dealing, the drama culminated in a court case that determined not just the state of Mary’s legacy but the future of London itself.
‘An enjoyable romp through the social history of a century from the Great Fire and the rebuilding of London to the Enlightenment, taking in discourses on midwifery, madness, child-rearing, burial practices, the birth and development of the London property market and the dangers of being a woman.’
‘Wonderful… Leo Hollis knows the expanding city like the back of his hand, and brings a forensic eye and a deep empathy to the mystery at the heart of Mary Davies’s tragic life… Inheritance is a consistently enthralling read.’
‘Genuinely gripping. Hollis tells a good tale… Inheritance is also a book about property… his knowledge shows here in confident and vivid descriptions of the capital at the start of the 18th century. But he comes at his subject from a novel angle.’
‘A fascinating insight into a tragic backwater of London’s history, yet from which one of its most magnificent estates emerged…’
