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"Strange and haunting, a gothic novel with a modern consciousness." —Philippa Gregory
"A haunting, sophisticated story about a woman discovering the truth about herself and the elusive, possibly illusive, nature of genius." —Sunday Times
"Mesmerizing, haunting, imbued with a complete sense of historical verisimilitude" —Times Literary Supplement
"A psychologically haunting and disturbing tale as full of mystery, exotic foreign places, and questions of parentage as any penned by her protagonist." —Library Journal
"Thrilling and heartbreaking, a gothic novel with emotional heart and depth." —Foreword Reviews
"A darkly mischievous novel about love, obsession and the burden of charisma, played out against the backdrop of Venice's watery, decadent glory." —Sarah Dunant
"A mesmerizing story of love and obsession in nineteenth-century Venice: dark and utterly compelling." —Natasha Solomons
Set in bustling Regency England and decaying Venice, A Man of Genius portrays a psychological journey from safety into secrecy and obsession. After a troubled childhood, Ann achieves independence earning her living as an author of Gothic novels. Within a group of male writers, she meets and is enthralled by the supposed poetic genius, Robert James. They become uneasy lovers. Ann and Robert travel from London through a Europe exhausted by the Napoleonic Wars. They arrive in a Venice of spies and intrigue, where their relationship becomes tortuous and Robert descends into near madness. Forced to flee with a stranger, Ann delves into her past to be jolted by a series of revelations about her lover, her parentage, the stranger, and herself.
Janet Todd was born in Wales and had a wandering childhood in England, Scotland, Bermuda and Ceylon. She worked as an academic in Ghana, Puerto Rico, the US (University of Florida and Professor at Rutgers, NJ), Scotland and England. An Emerita Professor at the University of Aberdeen, until recently she was President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. An internationally renowned scholar, she is an expert on Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft and Aphra Behn. Her passion has been for women writers, both the largely unknown and the famous.