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Francis Spufford

Biography

Francis Spufford

Francis Spufford is the author of five highly praised books of nonfiction. His first book, I MAY BE SOME TIME, won the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Nonfiction Book of 1996, the Banff Mountain Book Prize, and a Somerset Maugham Award. It was followed by THE CHILD THAT BOOKS BUILT, BACKROOM BOYS, RED PLENTY (which was translated into nine languages), and most recently, UNAPOLOGETIC. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College and lives near Cambridge, England. GOLDEN HILL is his first novel.

Francis Spufford

Books by Francis Spufford

Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York
by Francis Spufford - Fiction, Historical Fiction

New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan island, 1746. One rainy evening in November, a handsome young stranger fresh off the boat arrives at a countinghouse door on Golden Hill Street. Mr. Smith is amiable and charming, yet strangely determined to keep suspicion shimmering. In his pocket, he has what seems to be an order for a thousand pounds, a huge sum, and he won’t explain why, where he comes from, or what he is planning to do in the colonies that requires so much money. Should the New York merchants trust him? Should they risk their credit and refuse to pay? Should they befriend him, seduce him, arrest him --- maybe even kill him?