The Dark and the Light

Josephine Bell

May 2012 · Pan Macmillan

About this ebook

The third book of her Jacobean Trilogy, Josephine Bell's The Dark and the Light follows Sir Francis Leslie, a dedicated husband, father and scholar living in Seventeenth Century Oxford. Happy with his work and family life, Leslie determines to stay as clear as possible of the dangerous political world of the Jabobean Court. But his ambitious wife Katharine has other plans. Determined to make her way in the Court by whatever means necessary, Katharine draws herself and those around her into a web of treachery, corruption and intrigue – and unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events which will lead to one of the most notorious murders of the Seventeenth Century.

Seamlessly weaving together imagined and real historical narrative, with The Dark and the Light, Josephine Bell paints an intimate and terrifying portrait of the Court of King James.

About the author

Josephine Bell was born Doris Bell Collier in Manchester, England. Between 1910 and 1916 she studied at Godolphin School, then trained at Newnham College, Cambridge until 1919. At the University College Hospital in London she was granted M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. in 1922, and a M.B. B.S. in 1924.

Bell was a prolific author, writing forty-three novels and numerous uncollected short stories during a forty-five year period.

Many of her short stories appeared in the London Evening Standard. Using her pen name she wrote numerous detective novels beginning in 1936, and she was well-known for her medical mysteries. Her early books featured the fictional character Dr. David Wintringham who worked at Research Hospital in London as a junior assistant physician. She helped found the Crime Writers' Association in 1953 and served as chair during 1959-60.