west end publications

ARAM is a true story of class and religious bigotry, incest and murder. The story unfolds through the investigative eyes of Felix Kendle.

R v Houseman, Aram and Terry was the sensational cause célèbre of eighteenth century England. After his codefendants had turned King’s evidence, Eugene – a brilliant linguistic scholar – conducted his own defence, attacking the doctrine of circumstantial evidence and so making legal history. The nineteenth century saw Thomas Hood’s poem, The Dream of Eugene Aram, in print and Lord Lytton produced an imaginative work based on the same subject. In the early twentieth century, Aram was the subject of three melodramatic silent films.

What exactly did happen when a young shoemaker, and a historically ignored travelling Jewish servant-boy, simply vanished on that snowy night back in 1745? With the help of extensive research and a lot of luck, the writer has done her best to solve a cracking mystery that has intrigued generations.