Synopses & Reviews
Bristol in 1787 is booming, a city where power beckons those who dare to take risks. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs capital and a well-connected wife.
Marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah's protection, Frances finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar, rum, and slaves.
Into her new world comes Mehuru, once a priest in the ancient African kingdom of Yoruba, now a slave in England. From opposite ends of the earth, despite the difference in status, Mehuru and Frances confront each other and their need for love and liberty.
Review
"The latest page-turner from Gregory (The Boleyn Inheritance) is a sobering account of the English slave trade, with a bit of romance thrown in.... A vivid depiction of the trade and the ruined lives left in its wake." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Entering into an arranged marriage with an aspiring merchant in 1787 Bristol, Frances Scott is discouraged by her slavery-dependent lifestyle and unexpectedly falls for African slave and former Yoruba priest Mehuru. By the author of The Other Boleyn Girl. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.
Synopsis
In a breakthrough novel that has all the power of Roots and The Thornbirds, Philippa Gregory has created a haunting tale of forbidden love and exhilaration, a rich and poignant story that sets individuals against a society devastated by intolerance and greed.
Synopsis
From #1 New York Times bestselling author and "queen of royal fiction" (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory comes a story about the devastating consequences of the slave trade in 19th century England. Bristol in 1787 is booming, a city where power beckons those who dare to take risks. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs capital and a well-connected wife.
Marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah's protection, Frances finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar, rum, and slaves.
Into her new world comes Mehuru, once a priest in the ancient African kingdom of Yoruba, now a slave in England. From opposite ends of the earth, despite the difference in status, Mehuru and Frances confront each other and their need for love and liberty.
Synopsis
It was to be a respectable marriage to a man engaged in a respectable business. Certainly 34-year-old Frances Scott, forced into genteel poverty despite an aristocratic heritage, has little choice but to wed the lower class Bristol shipping merchant.
Trading her social connections for his protection in the brutally male-dominated world of eighteenth-century England, Frances discovers that her husband's "respectable" trade-- dealing in African slaves-- will propel her into a passionate fight for romance, life and the freedom of the slave she comes to love deeply.
A saga of desire and shame, of dramatic confrontations between convention and truth, "A Respectable Trade" is a disturbing and yet truly satisfying novel from "the first lady of intelligent historical fiction."
About the Author
Philippa Gregory is the author of fourteen books, one of which, Wideacre, was a New York Times bestseller. She holds a Ph.D. in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh and lives in England.
Reading Group Guide
INTRODUCTION Description
The devastating consequences of the slave trade in 18th-century Bristol, England, are explored through the powerful but FORBIDDEN attraction of well-born Frances Scott and her Yoruban slave, Mehuru. Bristol in 1787 is booming, from its shipping docks to its elegant new houses. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs ready cash and a well-connected wife.
An arranged marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah's protection, Frances enters the world of Bristol merchants and finds her life and fortune depend on the respectable trade of sugar, rum, and slaves.
Into her new world comes Mehuru, once a priest in the ancient African kingdom of Yoruba. From the opposite ends of the earth, despite the enmity of slavery, Mehuru and Frances confront each other and their needs for love and liberty.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is Mehuru's role in his African tribe? To what extent do his gift of prophecy and his linguistic abilities enable him to endure the hardships of the middle passage and his enslavement in England?
2. "We can never leave the Trade. It is the only thing we know." How do Sarah Cole's attitudes about the trade and the risk involved in her family's shipping business compare with those of her brother, Josiah? To what extent do Sarah's views prevent her from welcoming her sister-in-law, Frances, into the family?
3. Before Frances meets the slaves she is to instruct in English, she says: "I have taught children, but they were human children. I wouldn't know how to teach niggers." Based on the statements made by slaves, their owners, and abolitionists, describe the range of racial views held by the inhabitants of 18th-century Bristol.
4. Why do Frances and Josiah allow Sir Charles Fairley's to rape one of the female slaves? What do they have to lose by refusing his request? What do they have to gain by looking the other way while he commits his sexual assault?
5. Why does Josiah wish to ally himself with the Scott family through his arranged marriage to Frances? What does such an alliance represent to the society figures of Bristol? To what extent are Josiah's naïveté and unchecked ambition responsible for his being cheated by fellow members of the Merchant Venturers?
6. Why does Mehuru's involvement in the abolitionist movement threaten Frances? To what extent does Mehuru qualify as a radical in his efforts to gain his freedom from his owners? Why didn't he try to escape during one of his nighttime expeditions to the coffee house?
7. "Only a free man can give his friendship. If you wish us to be friends I have to be free. Anything else is slavish devotion -- it means nothing." Why does Frances wait until her death to set Mehuru free? What would his freedom represent to her in her lifetime?
8. "Maybe one day there will be a world where a man and a woman like us might love each other, d'you think?" Is the romance that develops between Mehuru and Frances challenged more by their different social stations as slave and owner or their different racial backgrounds? To what extent is the "forbidden fruit" aspect of their love responsible for the undeniable intensity?
9. Why does Frances Cole conceal her pregnancy from Mehuru and choose to reveal the baby's paternity to her physician and her slave, Elizabeth? Why do you think Philippa Gregory chose to end the novel at such a dramatic moment?
10. To what extent do you see the end of A Respectable Trade as a tragedy? In what ways does it represent a victory for Mehuru? How did this ending affect your appreciation of the story as a whole, and what kind of future do you envision for the interracial son born to Frances and Mehuru?