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, she takes on a new identity, determined to rehabilitate herself. To do so she must pit her formidable skills for revenge against Earl Much, a British aristocrat with no less notorious a past and easily her match in sinfulness and intrigue. Between these two swirls a story featuring venal lords, wronged maidens, and reprobate clergymen, transporting readers from bawdy houses to country estates-places where the pleasures of the flesh are both high comedy and serious business. A Factory of Cunning takes readers to the world immortalized in Dangerous Liaisons. And, like Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, the vividly rendered setting and characters give the thrill of a fresh discovery.

A Factory Of Cunning

Literature & Fiction

Stockley, Philippa

Literary

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

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 her match in sinfulness and intrigue. Between these two swirls a story featuring venal lords, wronged maidens, and reprobate clergymen, transporting readers from bawdy houses to country estates—places where the pleasures of the flesh are both high comedy and serious business. A Factory of Cunning takes readers to the world immortalized in Dangerous Liaisons. And, like Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, the vividly rendered setting and characters give the thrill of a fresh discovery.

United States

Harper Paperbacks

Gilver Memmer is running short of time. He is an enormously gifted painter, staggeringly good-looking, and profoundly self-involved, a cross between every woman's dream and every woman's worst nightmare. Great though his creative gifts may be, they cannot save him from dissolution. No longer the London art scene's wunderkind, he is getting by on the fumes of his former luck and sliding inexorably-though with a certain self-destructive elegance-toward oblivion. Into Gilver's life come two women: one who wants to push him into the grave he has been digging for himself and another who just might save him from it.

The Edge Of Pleasure

A Factory of Cunning

Contemporary

London: Little, Brown

By the time Gilver was 28 he was fabulously rich, with the world, especially women, at his feet. Within the space of a few short weeks, his money dries up, his house burns down, and drink becomes his new best friend. Suddenly, Gilver is desperate to swap his reputation for redemption—the question is where to find it. In sweet, caring, besotted Alice, Gilver might have his answer. But Alice's best friend Juliette is equally caught up in the painter, and the dark secrets she holds threatens to destroy him

The Edge of Pleasure

Little, Brown Book Group

Cruelty, greed and sexual entitlement. Sound familiar? But in the seventeenth century women had far more to fear from powerful men. This darkly evocative and fast-paced novel - complex and glittering as a tapestry, its blackness lit by flashes of humour - challenges contemporary notions of race and class to chart the career of a manipulative mogul and the women who staked everything to overcome his attempts to destroy them. Two women, one white, one black. Zenobia, born in poverty, grasps that her only hope of controlling her own life is to capitalize on her looks; Lily, brought to London on a sugar and slave ship as a `toy', educated alongside her mistress but used by her master, lives as a kept woman. As the complex story weaves and folds through a murky and merciless London, both find themselves pitted against a ruthless magistrate the world knows as John Crace. Late seventeeth-century London's festering but rich possibilities as a rapidly-changing multinational city are breathtakingly painted. Pungent milieux range from plague pits to prisons to pastry kitchens - and Pickled Herring Wharf. Cruelty, greed and ruthless ambition seethe under the surface of a society where life is cheap and feelings are ruthlessly exploited.

Black Lily

Genre Fiction

Pimpernel Press

The soft shine of wooden boards, worn and gappy. The molten luster of mahogany or worn silver; the curiosity of tricorn hat boxes or a fragment of Spitalfields silk; portraits whose owners might once have lived here. Would they have believed that these houses would stand 250 years later? Time has imbued all these things with unforgettable patina—not only in museums, but even more in old Georgian houses still lived in and loved. The majority of these extraordinary dwellings began as ordinary terrace houses, built to a pattern, often in pairs or small groups. Clusters exist in the East End of London: in Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Shadwell, Mile End. They are mostly Grade II-listed, and their owners put up with the bone-curdling cold of winter howling through gaps, with mending and color-matching, patching and piecing. And among them are some unrepentantly furnished with 20th- and 21st-century modern, finding poetic harmony across the centuries.

Restoration Stories: Patina and Paint in Old London Houses

Arts & Photography

Architecture

Artist and award-winning writer Philippa Stockey has designed, made and painted since childhood, both personally and, later, professionally. So, when she bought a derelict small house, making it lovely on a budget was top of the list. Stockley paints, sews, saws and cooks, creating, among other special things, murals, floor coverings, panels and paint effects, soft furnishings, attractive and useful shelves, home-made jam and organic polish. She uses as many natural materials as possible, keeps waste to a minimum and recycles. In more than 300 original photos and drawings, this practical book shows you how to do the same. Where possible, choose good-quality natural materials, say no to needless plastics, aggressive chemicals, and unnecessary waste. Use your own labour to save money and give a unique result. It's a way of life, joyful, satisfying and enriching. Judicious use of precious resources makes us part of a cycle of creation and renewal, a global jigsaw in which everyone has a part to play. Stockley shares projects of varying complexity from her own home to inspire you to create something gorgeous in yours.

Paint and Make: Decorative and eco ways to transform your home

Self-Help

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stockley, Philippa. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stockley, Philippa

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stockley, Philippa. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Factory Of Cunning

A Factory Of Cunning

The Edge Of Pleasure

A Factory of Cunning

The Edge of Pleasure

Black Lily

Restoration Stories: Patina and Paint in Old London Houses

Paint and Make: Decorative and eco ways to transform your home