In this remarkable detective novel Peter Ackroyd investigates the death of Thomas Chatterton, the eighteenth-century poet-forger and genius, who died at the tender age of eighteen under extremely strange circumstances. Fusing themes of illusion and imagination, delusion and dreams, the author weaves strands from three centuries. The cast is a motley crew of Dickensian eccentrics and rogues, from the outrageous, gin-sipping Harriet Scrope to the tragic Charles Wychwood, on a personal quest for Chatterton's deepest secrets. With his customary wit and attention to historical detail, Peter Ackroyd blends truth and fiction into a tantalizingly clever whodunit, an ingenious twist on the tale of English literature's greatest prodigy and most notorious "suicide."

"CHATTERTON . . . satisfies both the imagination and the intellect; every chapter delights, surprises and informs." (Sunday Times of London)