The Original : 'Puts Stevens in the class of Sarah Waters and even du Maurier herself' Financial Times

Charlotte says about The Original: 
"I’m not often a reader of books with more than 300 pages, but this one had me hooked!  Following the story of Grace, a Victorian woman who seeks to gain independence as a copyist, The Original focuses on the secrets she keeps - and those that are kept from her. An homage to art and authenticity, it balances its gritty and compelling plot with introspection and a personal tenderness that give it life and warmth until its final pages."

Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick grows up on the peripheries of a once-great household, an unwanted guest in her uncle’s home. She has unusual skills and unusual predilections: for painting, though faces elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls.

 Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena. After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is ready to come home. When Charles returns, unrecognisable and uncanny, a rift emerges between those who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. And Grace, whose intimate knowledge of forgeries is her own closely-guarded secret, must decide who and what to believe in, and what kind of life she wants to live.

 Deftly-plotted and shimmering with Nell Stevens’s distinctive intelligence, style and wit, THE ORIGINAL is a novel about the value of authenticity in art and in love, and what it means to be a true original.

Author: Stevens, Nell
Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
Published on 23 April 2026 by Simon & Schuster Ltd (Scribner UK) in the United Kingdom.
Paperback / softback | 400 pages
197 x 131 x 27 | 288g