The Skull and the Nightingale: A Novel

Michael Irwin’s The Skull and the Nightingale is a chilling and deliciously dark, literary novel of manipulation and sex, intrigue and seduction, set in 18th-century England. When Richard Fenwick returns to London, his wealthy godfather, James Gilbert, has an unexpected proposition. Gilbert has led a sedate life in Worcestershire, but feels the urge to experience, even vicariously, the extremes of human feeling: love, passion, and something much more sinister. It becomes apparent that Gilbert desires news filled with tales of carousing, flirtation, excess, and London’s more salacious side. But Gilbert’s elaborate and manipulative “experiments” into the workings of human behavior soon drag Richard into a Faustian vortex of betrayal and danger where lives are ruined and tragedy is only a step away. With echoes of Dangerous Liaisons, Michael Irwin’s The Skull and the Nightingale is an urgent period drama that seduces the senses.

From Booklist

This provocative novel offers a richly detailed look at a filthy eighteenth-century London. Orphaned 23-year-old Richard Fenwick has had his education paid for by his godfather, James Gilbert. Upon returning from a grand tour in Europe, Richard is summoned to the great man’s estate, where he waits anxiously to hear what his responsible but cold godfather’s plans are for him. What Gilbert desires is correspondence from his godson outlining his adventures in London, for it turns out that Gilbert has never allowed himself to give in to his sensual nature and now regrets it. Initially, Richard is only too glad to record his marathon drinking sessions with his boisterous friends and his budding liaison with a glamorous actress. But when he runs into a childhood friend, now married, and feels himself once again drawn to her, he is hesitant to reveal his true feelings to his godfather’s prying eyes. Yet at the same time, he finds himself growing increasingly reckless, so that he has something to write about. This surprisingly dark story of twisted head-games and base instincts is, by turns, troubling and engrossing. --Joanne Wilkinson

Entertainment Weekly

“Evokes Tom Jones, The Crimson Petal and the White, and Les Liaisons Dangereuses. . . . Irwin has crafted a terrific historical novel, and an even better psychological thriller. A-”

Sunday Times (London)

“As Gilbert becomes ever more manipulative, and Fenwick falls in love with another pawn in his patron’s game, Irwin creates an atmospheric portrait of the Georgian world in which this ambivalent rake’s progress takes place.”

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Amid Irwin’s spot-on descriptions of 18-century England’s squalor and splendor, the masquerades and dinner parties, this passion play mostly rests between the sheets where Lust lies. . . . Irwin’s secondary characters also fascinate . . . A tale of morals, intriguingly told.”

Jenny Uglow, author of The Lunar Men

“I really admired and enjoyed it. The atmosphere, idiom and characters are great. The plotting is terrific. And I had a genuine shock at the end.”

Jeremy Lewis, author of Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family

“Richard Fenwick is a dashing, good-looking rake in the tradition of Boswell, William Hickey, Tom Jones and Roderick Random, and his fast-moving adventures among the pubs and petticoats have a twist in the tail that is startling and well worth waiting for.”

Maria McCann, author of As Meat Loves Salt and The Wilding

“A dark, compelling tale of an eighteenth-century Faustus and his Mephistopheles, which troubles the reader with a growing unease from the start and never slackens pace right up to its disturbing conclusion.”

Library Journal

“This novel of manipulation and seduction evokes Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s classic Les Liaisons Dangereuses. . . . [and] vividly renders the darker side of the Age of Enlightenment. Readers who like their history served up with conquest and betrayal will enjoy this page-turner.”

From the Back Cover

A man eager to make his fortune . . . A godfather who initiates a dangerous psychological game . . . An extraordinary proposition, one of discovery, pleasure–and pain. When Richard Fenwick, a young man without family or means, returns to London from a Grand Tour of Europe in 1761, his godfather, James Gilbert, has an unexpected proposition. Gilbert has led a sedate life in the country, but now, in his advancing years, he feels the urge to experience, if vicariously, the extremes of human feeling—love and passion, in particular—along with something much more sinister. He asks Richard to serve as his proxy and to write to him of his city adventures, and his ward believes he has no option but to accept.It quickly becomes clear that Gilbert desires correspondence of a titillating nature—tales of carousal, seduction, and excess—and so Richard begins to write of London's more salacious side. For here is an invitation to hedonism and Richard, eager to taste all that a privileged life has to offer, rises to the challenge.But Gilbert's elaborate and manipulative "experiments" into the most intimate workings of human behavior soon drag Richard into a vortex of betrayal, where lives may be ruined and tragedy is only a step away. And when Richard does the unthinkable and falls in love, the stakes are raised and he must make a defining choice. But what sort of man has he by now become?A chilling and deliciously dark tale of manipulation, sex, and seduction, The Skull and the Nightingale combines the intoxication of Perfume, the sensuality of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and the exquisite detail of The Crimson Petal and the White. This entrancing novel seduces the senses, bringing vividly to life the heady swirl of eighteenth-century London while exploring the darkest passions and instincts that animate us all.

About the Author

Michael Irwin is an emeritus professor of English at the University of Kent in Canterbury, where he specialized in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature. His published work includes a full-length study of Fielding and essays on Defoe, Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, Johnson, and Pope. He lives in Kent, England.

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