Sara Woodall

A chance discovery of a trunk of documents by the author opened up a window on the rapidly expanding cities of Leeds and London in the nineteenth century. Cholera epidemics, Luddite disruptions, hopeless medical interventions, the births of the railways, a discovery of a murder, the mystery of an ancestor believed to be the unknown great-great grandfather of the renowned inventor Thomas Alva Edison, a great Quaker bank crash and travel in America newly recovering from the Civil War, all were intertwined with the story of the painful life of a Leed's lawyer, Edwin Eddison.

Sara Woodall was born in Thirsk, Yorkshire. She was a teacher before concentrating on portrait painting. Later, in Cambridge, she was a partner with David and Lida Kindersley at Cardozo Kindersley Editions. In 1995 she set up her own book business and was asked to select books for 10 Downing Street to give as gifts to visiting heads of state. She is married and lives outside Cambridge.