Robert Graves recounts the life of William Palmer: surgeon, racehorse owner...a confessed forger who got girls into trouble, doped horses, robbed a few people...but was he a prisoner? Based on an actual trial that took place in 1856, this novel, like Graves' "Wife to Mr. Milton" and "I, Claudius, " has all the immediacy and spiciness of contemporary Victorian life. It is told through interviews with Palmer's friends and enemies. This book has humor, social significance and passion, and makes absorbing and scintillating reading.