The Smart

by Sarah Bakewell

Britain was on the verge of war with America, yet foreign affairs were far from the thoughts of Londoners, spellbound by the proceedings of two spectacular trials, one involving a strange pair of twins, and the other an elegant young woman. Caroline Rudd had left Ireland for London where she came to enjoy a glamorous life as a high-class prostitute. Her mesmerizing charisma attracted the identical but opposite Perreau twins – one a sober merchant, the other a raffish gambler. Caroline and the twins forged bonds and lived in luxury until everything collapsed like a house of cards and charges of forgery were laid. Meticulously researched, this evocative history brilliantly bridges the gap between aristocracy and underworld, as eighteenth-century society is drawn into the most scandalous financial ‘smart’ of the age.

Genres: Historical Fiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 19, 2001

About the author

Sarah Bakewell was a bookseller and a curator of early printed books at the Wellcome Library before publishing her highly acclaimed biographies The Smart, The English Dane, and the best-selling How to Live: A Life of Montaigne, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. In addition to writing, she now teaches in the Masters of Studies in Creative Writing at Kellogg College, University of Oxford. She lives in London.

Reviews

[Marguerite Kaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Caroline Rudd was, I suspect, a woman that I would loathe. She would definitely loathe me, she seemed to have no time for other women at all. Men, she seemed to have been excellent at manipulating, and she certainly took a great many of them as lovers/protectors/husbands, including James Boswell, but whether she actually liked any of them is a different matter. Nearly all her published writing (and there was a great deal) is either defending herself or attacking someone else. She doesn't even seem to have had much affection for her three children.

Mrs Rudd (the most-used of her many pseudonyms) was most famous for having escaped the gallows when accused of forging and attempting to cash a bond. She proved herself in court an innocent dupe of the Perreau twins, one of whom was her common-law husband, and both of whom hanged for the crime. It was widely believed after the fact that she was the guilty one, and that they were the dupes - too late for the Perreaus. As a result, Caroline became persona non grata in society, living on an ever-decreasingly-wealthy selection of lovers until she eventually, probably, died in Newgate.

She's a fascinating study because she's so coldly calculating. She had a terrible early life, and was badly beaten by her first (probably only legal) husband. She was a prostitute, of the lowest kind at times, of the highest at others. She was profligate, she didn't give a damn about who she owed money too even if it left them in dire straits, as long as she didn't suffer. And she was a ruthless liar. The ins and outs of the fraud case are fascinating because there's so many inter-twined stories that it's impossible to see the truth. Caroline herself is an enigma in many ways, as Sarah Bakewell pointed out, a woman intent on obscuring every fact about herself. I don't normally enjoy biographies about dislikeable people with few endearing features, but I did enjoy this one. A lot.

[Sarah W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The criminal schemes of 18th-century London are brought to live in this book examining the case of Margaret Caroline Rudd and the Perreau brothers. Rudd was essentially a high-class prostitute and one of her lovers was Daniel Perreau, who along with his twin brother Robert, was exposed for a forgery scam in 1775. This book examines the evidence - Rudd was most certainly involved with the scam - and recounts how the brothers were convicted and executed for the crime, while Rudd won an acquittal and her freedom. Through this case, a new picture of 18th-century England emerges - a place with new rules for credit and plenty of ruthless people willing to bend the rules for their own benefit.

[Herb · Rating 2 out of 5]

A reasonably entertaining biography of Margaret Rudd, an 18th c. Londonite, who, besides being a high-paid courtesan/trollop, cooked up intricate forgery schemes with her husband and his brother. All three were caught and prosecuted, with (spoiler alert) only she avoiding the hangman's noose. The author's 3 books dealing with Philosophy are much better.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rollicking courtroom read, about a case of forgery that happened in the 1700s. Who was the real victim? As the 3 accused turn on each other, it's hard to tell who is being "had".