In 1905, the great Henry James arrives in Northampton, Massachusetts, to deliver a lecture to the local literati. He is feted in a grand style-and so is the Englishman impersonating him. In the meantime, a vacationing Harry Reese has stumbled upon a body marinating in an abandoned canal bed. But rather than report the corpse, Harry decides to use it to distract his wife Emmie from her own literary ambitions. Then the body vanishes. Twice. These two plots, each sufficiently ludicrous in its own right, coalesce to produce a truly remarkable book, one that dares to answer the age-old question: can a man drown in his blancmange?
A Grundy Glossary: As the dialogue of Mr. and Mrs. Grundy includes a sprinkling of Elizabethan slang, I've added a glossary at the end of the book. If you'd prefer to print it out, here is a PDF version.