The Somerset Maugham Prize-winning, international bestselling debut novel: "a dazzling linguistic and formal achievement" set in 18th century London (Salman Rushdie).

In eighteenth-century London, John Lempriere works feverishly on a celebrated dictionary of classical mythology that bears his name. But when he discovers a conspiracy against his family dating back 150 years, he embarks on a personal mission that will pit him against enemies he never new he had, allies he never thought he would ever want, and a destiny he never imagined...

Told with the narrative drive of a political thriller and a Dickensian panorama of place and time, this "superbly entertaining" tale encompasses multinational conspiracies and a motley cast of scholars, eccentrics, prostitutes, assassins, drunken aristocrats, and octogenarian pirates-all brilliantly depicted across three continents and the world of classical mythology ( The Washington Post).