A Factory of Cunning

by Philippa Stockley

Book Overview

Set in late eighteenth-century England, Philippa Stockley's American debut gives us a wickedly delightful but deadly serious battle of the wills and the sexes. It begins with the arrival in London of the mysterious Mrs. Fox--on the run from a scandalous French past--who takes a new identity, determined to reinvent herself. She must pit her formidable skills for revenge against Earl Much, a British aristocrat with no less notorious a past and easily...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156030675
• ISBN13: 9780156030670
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Intelligent and wicked sequel to Dangerous Liaisons

In the "Factory of Cunning" Philippa Stockley manages to achieve success in a tough project. She takes Madame de Merteuil in her hand and gives her a voice that is both new and true to her Laclos roots. Although we do not have an equally amusing and equally heartless Valmont here, we have a more dangerous sociopath to curdle our blood: Earl Much. Stockley weaves a clever, cruel story which is more English than French this time and Merteuil fits in London almost as perfectly as in Paris. Most of the time sequels to popular classics are big fat failures and I confess I did not have my hopes high on this book. I have to say that I was very happily surprised and I recommend it to all Laclos fans.

Scandalous! Heartless! But, O! What Fun!

Ms. Stockley has mastered the art of writing letters & journal entries like a saucy tart or a dandified fop in the 1780s, and has produced a book sure to please those readers who find themselves thinking that Jane Austen would be a wee bit more interesting if she'd rebelled just a tad against her role as a clergyman's daughter... This is a witty (and in truth, a rather nasty) little book, told via letters between the story's stars and completely in character. Careful reading will leave you laughing at the dripping sarcasm, innuendo and political jibes peppered through the correspondence which tell this story. The reader is lured into the sticky middle of a web spun from intrigue, lies, corruption, pimping, pandering, love, vengeance, incest, spoiled innocence, and a smattering of other distasteful topics. Attention to the author's footnotes (which are written as if the novel were an edited collection of letters) and end notes will provide additional entertaining detail and sarcasm for your reading enjoyment. Mrs. Fox, our main villainess, has escaped murder by mob in France after ruining the lives of several innocent people for sport, feining small pox, duping the masses and escaping to Amsterdam. There she sets up shop in a brothel - high end, as if it matters - and begins a friendship with a man which grows, reluctantly, into love. Fox flees to England in effort to escape the clutches of an enemy bent on revenge and lands in London. She soon finds herself bored and for pleasure begins to tinker with the lives of others, until her paramour in Amsterdam discovers her past, reveals his, and inadvertantly sets in motion a string of devastating and coincidental events. Realizing too late that Mrs. Fox is more than up for the deprived challenge he posed, he writes desperately to save her from herself only to realize that she has drawn in a number of other unsuspecting people to do her dirty work and provide her with amusement. As the post is slow and Mrs. Fox is stubborn, things get a bit out of hand... If you are looking for a temporary escape into the seedier side of London during one of it's more colorful periods, open the pages & enjoy A Factory of Cunning.

Wonderful read

The sharp, and sharp-tongued, Mrs. Fox is a charming anti-heroine. She lies, she steals, she cheats...but you can't help admire her wittiness and bravery as she picks her way through English society (most of whom are also lying, cheating, and stealing from each other with impunity). As each of the characters she encounters connects to others in turn, and the intricacies of their relationships become apparent, Mrs. Fox's final encounter with her pursuers draws closer and closer. Stockley's arch language is wonderful, and not to be missed if you enjoyed reading the original Liasons Dangereuses.

"I spoke of Mrs. Fox manipulating people for her pleasure"

The epistolary novel is always a risky endeavor, the brisk pacing, the intimacy of character, and the complexity of plot must always be exactly right. In A Factory of Cunning, Philippa Stockley's, sensational new novel, she achieves all this and much, much more. This is a marvelously intriguing, deliciously wicked, and titillatingly voyeuristic outing that transports the reader to a vividly drawn London of 1784. It's a tumultuous time where the war of the sexes is in full force, where mischievousness and deceit reign, and where houses of ill repute are springing up all over the City. Mrs. Fox, who has just arrived in England after having fled France is the chief protagonist in this bawdy and deceptive tale. She has recently been forced into exile after notoriously becoming a fallen woman in her home country. Armed with her trusted servant Victoire, and a series of introductory letters from Dr. Hubert van Essel, physician benefactor in Holland, this enigmatic and crafty woman changes her identity and masterfully sets about establishing herself in London society. There are disastrous consequences for all as this machiavellian-like noblewoman, prostitute, and brothel keeper, sets up a business in London's bawdier section in order to steadfastly peruse her life of scandal and vice. As the reader is gradually drawn into Mrs. Fox's journal, it soon becomes clear that she's willfully on the run from the dark secrets of her past. A lively correspondence begins to develop between her and van Essel, their relationship revealed to be far more intimate than at first thought. Exchanging witty banter and confiding their darkest secrets to each other, Fox and van Essel conspire to destroy the degenerate nobleman Urban Fine, who is responsible for the downfall of Essel's first true love. Urban Fine fears nothing; "he has given his life to taking men's souls - a libertine of the most dangerous sort." Mrs. Fox sets a trap for Urban Fine in the form of Amaranth, an alluring young heiress in need of a husband. Amaranth is actually Martha, a dressmaker and a mere common strumpet, but Mrs. fox intends to use her youthful beauty and allure to irrevocably disgrace Fine once and for all. Along the way we meet a variety of characters who weave in and out of the story: There's the passionate American painter Nathan Black, who falls in love with the innocent parson's daughter Violet Denyss. Black wants to save Violet who is unknowingly thrust into the exhibition chamber of a "Grecian Evening" in the brothel now owned by Mrs. Fox and managed be the "fallen" Poppy Salmon. There's also the dapper and wealthy Lord Danceacre, who takes Mrs. Fox under his wing, little knowing that she merely views him as a well-dressed half-wit, whose only use is his money and position in society. Mrs. Fox is indeed a conniver and schemer; she influences all her correspondents in many different ways: she's a mistress to one, an innocent to another, and when forced to, she piles on the mel

An 18th Century tour de force

Never has the war between the sexes been so cleverly writ, the debauchery and cunning of vice pitted against 18th century London's propriety, the vile odors of betrayal disguised by the pungent eau de toilette sprinkled on a lace-trimmed handkerchief . Which is London, the well-appointed and pampered halls of aristocracy or the bawdy houses and crime-riddled back alleys where theft and deceit thrive? The pages are cluttered with fops and cutpurses, carters and shopkeepers, all with an eye to survival, the language as ribald and colorful as the times, witty and detailed, a feast of linguistic legerdemain. In other words, it is all fabulously decadent, the reader immersed in the underbelly of London's scoundrels and purveyors of artifice in every form. Having fled France of necessity, then residing in Holland for two years, the dissolute and clever Mrs. Fox arrives on the slimy English shores with her servant in tow, determined to rebuild her fortune. Changing name and identity, the former Madame Combien (Mrs. How-Much) has every intention of setting up her business in London's bawdy section, having devised a successful formula for a house of ill repute in an elegant and exotic setting. To that end, she contacts persons recommended by her physician benefactor in Holland, Dr. Hubert van Essel, establishing her credentials in society. This is the era of Charles III, the demimonde and a culture of excess, the language itself almost written in anecdotal code. Mrs. Fox's endeavors generate immediate interest, her very nature to cajole and find favor, but she makes one advance that may be her undoing, when she associates herself with the Earl of Much, a man reputedly unmatched in getting his way, fabulously rich and dangerously powerful. Mrs. Fox, however, perversely credits female ingenuity and natural instinct: "that twilit crossing between demi-monde and mondaine, where mysteries turn marvels and duchesses rise from doxies." The plot plays out in a series of letters: Dr. Hubert von Essel, Mrs. Fox's protector and friend in Amsterdam; Mrs. Fox to her various pawns; Victoire the maid to her employer; the dandy Lord Danceacre; and, of course, the ultimate villain, the elusive Earl Much. The battle for submission is brilliantly engaged by Mrs. Fox and the Earl, a tour de force of machinations and cynical ripostes. Dr. van Essel has a personal stake in the encounter as well, albeit a matter he prefers kept private. The two foes engage in a duel of wits, the he and the she, each determined to best the other in a contest of manners and assignations, twisted deceits and double entendres. Stockley writes with fine craftsmanship and an impressive command of idiom, capturing the obsequious nature of the era in all its self-congratulatory grandeur. The letters of those concerned grow more agitated as the plot thickens, each determined to achieve satisfaction. Mrs. Fox's carefully laid plans backfire in the melee as the Earl does his evil best to outmaneuver