Flamboyant Matthew Cannonbridge was touched by genius, the most
influential mind of the 19th century, a novelist, playwright, the poet
of his generation. The only problem is, he should never have existed,
and recently divorced 21st century don Toby Judd is the only person to
realise something is wrong with history.
Cannonbridge was everywhere: he was by Lake Geneva when talk between
Byron, Shelley and Mary Godwin turned to the supernatural; he was friend
to the young Dickens as he laboured in the blacking factory; he was the
only man of note to visit Wilde in prison. His extraordinary life
spanned a century. But as the world prepares to toast the bicentenary of
Cannonbridge's most celebrated work, Judd's discovery leads him on a
breakneck chase across the English canon and countryside, to the
realisation that the spectre of Matthew Cannonbridge, planted so
seamlessly into the heart of the 19th century, might not be so dead and
buried after all...