An Instance of the Fingerpost
Book description
'A fictional tour de force which combines erudition with mystery' PD James
Set in Oxford in the 1660s - a time and place of great intellectual, religious, scientific and political ferment - this remarkable novel centres around a young woman, Sarah Blundy, who stands accused of the murder of Robert…
Why read it?
5 authors picked An Instance of the Fingerpost as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This is the only ‘whodunnit’ on my list, but it’s so much more. (As are all the best ‘whodunnits’.)
For a start, it’s told from four different points of view. My own books use the early history of the Royal Society, its science, and various of its actual ‘Fellows,’ and this book was undeniably an influence. Pears details the politics and religious turmoil of the time and the excitement of new scientific discoveries.
The mid-17th century’s rigid social structure and manners are shown starkly, as is the misogyny. I found it dark, layered, and although complex, it’s immediately engaging. A…
From Robert's list on science-based historical fiction novels.
An Instance of the Fingerpost engages with the intellectual world of the seventeenth century in a complex and compelling mystery of misdirection, with multiple shifts of perspective. It’s a way of thinking—and of blindly feeling—through the science of the day, as well as through the shifting layers of plot. And though the focus in this instance is the mind—this is a thinking, not a feeling book—it is quite literally a story of the heart: of the scientific debate about the circulation of the blood.
The ’fingerpost’ is a reference to the typographical marker used in the margins of black letter…
From Shirley's list on connecting with the thinking, feeling past.
Oxford, 1663: a servant girl confesses to a murder and is sentenced to hang. But four witnesses each have a theory about who actually committed the crime. Initially, I took each narrator’s account at face value, but the more pages I turned, the more I questioned the reliability of each testimony. The novel involved me in the investigation, further engaging my imagination. While An Instance of the Fingerpost is set one hundred years after my book, it also demonstrates how intensely religion infused every aspect of society and how religious conviction often shaped academic, medical, and scientific “facts.” How, whether…
From Marthese's list on demonstrating the fallout of religious conflict.
This novel is a bit of a cheat, as it takes place in Restoration England, but I couldn’t help myself. I picked it off the shelf at random at Shakespeare and Company in Paris, and it was like having the good fortune to sit down in a pub next to a future friend for life. I’m a sucker for murder mysteries, historical fiction, and unreliable narrators, and this book has all three! Pears narrates the murder from four different perspectives, with each one adding compelling details to a conspiracy that just keeps growing in scope and import. The star of…
From Jack's list on to get inside the heads of medieval men and women.
When Harvey published his theory that the heart pumped a huge amount of blood around the body, that wasn’t the end of it. People still needed to understand blood vessels, blood transfusion, blood groups, blood cells, diagnostic blood tests…
In this thriller, set in Oxford in the 1660s, four different people tell us their versions of the same events surrounding the murder of a fellow of the University. The reader is left to work out what actually happened. We see people trying to develop some of the implications of the circulation of the blood; in particular, can you change someone’s…
From Helen's list on discovering the circulation of the blood.
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