Synopses & Reviews
As the shadows lengthen over the June grass, all England is heading for Epsom Downs’ high life and low life, society beautifies and Whitechapel street girls, bookmakers and gypsies, acrobats and thieves. Whole families stream along the Surrey back-roads, towards the greatest race of the year. Hopes are high, nerves are taut, hats are tossed in the air. This is Derby Day. In this rich and exuberant novel, the mysteries pile high, propelling us towards the day of the great race, as we wait with baited breath as the story gallops to a finish no one expects.
Review
"D. J. Taylor, a British writer of formidable accomplishments,has pulled off an impressive and wholly engaging feat in Derby Day. The prose brings to mind Thackeray and Dickens. It is delicious fun. Taylor leaves one delighted to have visited this world and to have shared in its dissolute yet inviting pleasures. Derby Day is on every count a winner." Jonathan Yardley
Review
"Epsom Derby is the subject of an intricately plotted and stylistically burnished crime caper. Taylor builds the suspense,sending his characters to the racetrack for the final event.
Review
" is a triumphant success. In this unputdownable Victorian romp Taylor enjoyable proves himself to be one of the finest of our 21st-century novelists." The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Nominated for the Man Booker Prize, an exquisite tale of romance and rivalry, gambling and greed, from one of England’s finest writers.
About the Author
D. J. Taylor is a novelist, critic ,and biographer whose Orwell won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. His most recent books are Kept; Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation; Ask Alice; and Derby Day, which was nominated for the Booker Prize and was selected as a Washington Post Best Book of the Year.