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Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This edition published by Fourth Estate 2010
First published by Viking 1994
Copyright © Hilary Mantel 1994 PS section © Sarah O’Reilly 2010
PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Hilary Mantel asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
The lines from W.H. Auden’s As I Walked Out One Evening’ are reprinted from Collected Poems by W.H. Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson, by kind permission of Faber & Faber.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007172900
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 9780007354948
Version: 2019-06-07
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
To Jenny Naipaul
All the characters in this book are fictitious, except that of the Archbishop of Cape Town, which is based on his real-life counterpart, Geoffrey Clayton. I have used some of his words, taken from writings and sermons.
The settlement of Mosadinyana is fictional. The township of Elim is invented too, but I am indebted to the memoirs of Hannah Stanton, who served in the township of Lady Selborne.
Cases similar to that of the Eldreds may be found in the Law Reports of Botswana.
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871:
‘We are not here concerned with hopes and fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability…’
Job 4:7:
‘Consider, what innocent ever perished, or where have the righteous been destroyed?’
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