The author captures the style of an 18th century novel with its long, convoluted sentences, epistolary sections and random capitalization. There are elements of the picaresque – think Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews or perhaps, given some of the more salacious episodes, Tom Jones. There are also some colourful characters such as the awful creature Smith is forced to share a room with at one point and about whom he writes:

‘He has a Nose swollen to the Likeness of a Piece of Crimson Fruit, ornament’d by a many black Pores as there are Seeds upon a Strawberry; and a Skin of sunburn’d Leather otherwise, much pock’d and moul’d; and verminous Hair as long as his Shoulders, depending from a bald Pate; and a Pair of Eyes so crusted and blood-shot They would deserve to be made an Epithet by Homer, yet bright, and lively, and designing.’

Likewise, some of the descriptions of 18th century New York are reminiscent of Dickens:

‘Day upon day, the cold winds off the river stirred slow grey tributaries of fog between the houses, through which the crush of traffic loomed, and darkened as it loomed, as if becoming more solid with each approaching step. The fog contained and muffled the cries of draymen, squeak of wheel rims, hammering from aloft, et cetera, as a jewel-box with a cushioned lid presses all within into the smothering clasp of velvet.’

The mystery of the true purpose of Richard Smith’s mission provides the narrative arc for the book, into which the author drip feeds the occasional nugget of information about his background. There is some amusing verbal sparring between Smith and Tabitha Lovell, who is definitely not a typical heroine of 18th century literature. Spiky, moody and contrary, there are hints of deeper psychological problems.

I was all set to award 5 stars but, unfortunately, I felt disappointed by the ending. I guess I was hoping to be more surprised by the real purpose of Smith’s mission. This wasn’t helped by a significant piece of information being revealed fairly early on in the novel. However, Golden Hill is a highly enjoyable romp with a great cast of characters, some wonderful set pieces, lots of sly humour and a convincing period setting.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Scribner, in return for an honest review.

It's been a really long time since I read The Sot Weed Factor by John Barth. But this book immediately reminded me of it. Specifically, the ability to capture the language of the time. Not just in conversation, but the entire tone of the book. The joy here truly is the language. Spufford has a gift for description.

The book begins with Mr. Smith having arrived from London in New York City, 1746. He has a note with him for £1,000, a princely sum in those days. He refuses to tell anyone the purpose of his visit. He is queried at every turn. “When he had planned his entrance, he had not considered how much more easily an illusion is begun than maintained.”

The book tested my memory of English history, especially the Jacobite uprising and the War of Austrian Succession. Thank God for Google. The author does a good job of showing the distance between the colonies and the motherland and how it impacted how things played out over here. He also did a wonderful job of describing the finances of the day, especially the monetary system. (It made me appreciate even more what Hamilton did when he developed the country's financial system.)

At points, the author/narrator speaks directly to the reader. This can be an awkward device but it was an accepted practice in books from that century. It's not until the end that you learn who the “author” is.

This is not a fast paced book. It meanders through the streets of New York. It takes in the citizens. It listens in on conversations. But after awhile, I longed for a little more action. Then, of course, the action comes and so does the sorrow. The ending really threw me for a loop.

My thanks to netgalley and Scribner for an advance copy of this book.

I wish I liked Golden Hill more than I did. I am a tough customer when it comes to historical fiction, especially books set prior to 1900. I don't like books that romanticize the past or books that imprint contemporary sensibilities on historical characters. Golden Hill doesn't suffer from either of these flaws. In fact, it has a lot going for it. It's extremely well written and it does a great job giving life to to New York in the mid 1700s. But the story didn't really hold my interest until the last 20% or so. Young Mr. Smith arrives in New York from London in 1754. It's not clear to anyone in New York society who he is, why he's there and what his purpose is. The mystery surrounding him quickly gets him into various kinds of trouble -- romantic, financial, political and legal. This is a book with a lot description, action and repartee, but to me none of it made Smith knowable or sympathetic until the very end, when we learn about the reason for his trip. At that point, my reaction was to wish that I had known all along -- it would have made the story as it unfolded far more interesting. Instead, throughout much of Golden Hill, I found myself getting impatient and losing interest. There are many enthusiastic reviews of Golden Hill, and they are well deserved. My dissenting rating is based on my reading experience -- which at times felt like work -- rather than on the quality of the writing, historical context and overall plot. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy. Thank you also to Diane and Angela for another excellent buddy read. I think I may have given up on this one if we hadn't read it together. Given the ending, I'm glad I persevered.

New York 1746:  A charismatic and mysterious young man disembarks from a British ship and heads straight for the offices of a money broker bearing a promissory note for £1,000.  The broker is immediately suspicious and says he will honour the note in a couple of months' time when its authenticity has been validated, so the young man, Richard Smith, has no choice but to spend the following weeks in the vibrant, bawdy and dangerous melting-pot that was Manhattan in the mid 18th century.

During his time in the city Smith encounters all manner of colourful and entertaining characters.   New York is only just beginning its journey to become one of the most important and influential cities in the world, and Smith finds it a poor relation to the hustle and sophistication of his beloved London.   The book is crammed with fascinating historical details, such as the lack of a uniform currency which meant that deals were brokered in seemingly random (and sometimes worthless) bits of paper and goods, which are skilfully woven into an entertaining and engaging yarn as Smith strives to prove his innocence of any suspicion of fraud and to win the heart of the redoubtable Miss Tabitha Lovell (a wonderfully prickly and intriguing young woman). 

Frances Stufford's prose is evocative and full of humour and the language used conveys the perfect mixture of 18th century authenticity and modern-day readability.   Bawdy, intelligent and immensely entertaining - this will be one of my books of the year.

I was thrilled when I picked up this book to read and review. It seemed to have everything I have been looking for in a story. Male protagonist, an early New York setting, intrigue, and a mystery of a man no one knows and everyone is talking about him. When people meet him he is intelligent and speaks eloquently but gives very little of himself away. Meanwhile, as he waits for his “thousand pounds” to be legitimized-if you will-he meets many interesting people and gets himself into some trouble.

The major points in the story for me was the beautiful prose, brilliantly drawn characters and time and place of the story. However, I will have to say as I got further into the book the prose was getting to be too much and it seemed to take away from the plot and my eyes started to gaze over somewhat. To me there are too many unnecessary prose in the book that did not enhance the story-line however “literary” people might find Golden Hill.

Overall the plot needed to have more substance and to be fleshed out more. Having said all this, I am rating this book three stars and five stars for the cover.

The setting of this novel is what first intrigued me: very rarely have I found historical fiction set a generation before the Revolutionary War in New York City. The antiquated writing style matched the time period perfectly. Never did the plot sag or slow, and all the twists and turns constantly kept me on the edge of my seat and feverishly turning the pages. I felt that Septimus's death was rather shocking; up until that point the tone was kept jovial, light, and had an almost comical mad cap quality to it that seemed to separate it from the harsh realities of 18th century life in the colonies. However, to this end, the true purpose of Richard Smith's visit to New York also keeps the plot firmly rooted in reality, however unpleasant. I found Richard Smith to be an absolutely charming, intriguing, and lovable character; I thoroughly enjoyed my time with him. The romantic in me wanted Tabitha and Richard to end up together, but I cannot deny the utter perfection of the very last paragraph. I can't help but hope for a sequel and more adventures with Mr. Smith. This will be on my list for best books of 2017.

Had a hard time with this one, as much as I love historical fiction.

Oh Gosh, what is this book about? Set in New York in 1746, a gentleman , Mr Richard Smith alights from a boat with a £1000 money order in his pocket. That is probably the only clear sentence in this confusing and bewildering story as he wanders around the city, making observations,friends and enemies, set in a contorted faux English style of writing. Perhaps it's the idea of a newly fledging nation and its attitudes towards Slavery and the English that confounds me, but I found that once we got past the pretentious writing style and the political nuances, the book started to liven up. The influence of the early Dutch settlers and the spellings of many American cities were interesting, but Mr Smith remained a mystery throughout, changing and elaborating his story depending upon which scrape and misfortune had occurred to him, he had a gift for trouble!
I found it a challenging read, perhaps some novels do not translate well 'over the pond'.
Not a story for me, I'm afraid. I have posted this review on Goodreads today.

Golden Hill has gathered up the Costa First Novel Award along with a cluster of other awards including most recently the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje prize, which goes to a novel which best evokes a 'sense of place'. Celebrated as one of the best novels about the eighteenth century, the action is set around the nascent city of New York during a time when it was still heavily influenced by its Dutch roots and contained no more than seven thousand people. Still decades away from casting off British rule, the city is freshly-minted, not as foul smelling as London and yet with a greater barbarism and sense of danger. Enter the mysterious Mr Richard Smith, an Englishman newly-arrived and armed with a promissory note for one thousand pounds. It appears genuine and if so will need to be paid up within sixty days, so it is in the interests of all, not least Lovell the merchant required to pay out, that Mr Smith be proved false and cast out. Golden Hill charts Mr Smith's adventures as he tries to stay on the right side of the law while running afoul of butchers, thespians, lawyers, slaves and all manner of other calamities, including a duel and a stay in debtors' prison. A fresh take on the picaresque novel, Golden Hill appears to be a high-spirited frolic but surprises the reader by the darkness it uncovers.

Covering the space of a scant two months, Richard Smith rides quite the colonial rollercoaster in terms of personal fortunes and emotions. In a strange way, Golden Hill feels like one of the more honest depictions of the period that I have ever read. While at university, I studied a module on The Development of the Novel, which charted the evolution of the genre from Pamela through to Dickens. Despite straying into epistolary but rarely, there is an atmosphere to Spufford's story which recalls the work of Tobias Smollett or perhaps more aptly, Henry Fielding, with Spufford making direct appeal to his mighty forebears. There is the same note of bawdiness in these authors writing at the novel form's inception which exists in Golden Hill, but where Fielding and Smollett keep their eyes firmly upon a world where everyone is white and heterosexual, Spufford's gaze has gone where theirs could not, with his novel considering issues of race, class, sexuality and gender.

Richard meets Tabitha Lovell, daughter to the merchant who he just may be about to bankrupt, and the two of them strike up a spiky repartee which prickles with tension, with the question of what the two feel towards each other never clear. Mr Smith seems to be deliberately striving to remain an enigma and with the combative Tabitha so ready to lie to confound and confuse, the two of them like a baffling Beatrice and Benedict, with Tabitha's sister expressing her polite derision that they cannot just get over themselves. Tabitha however is never able to get over anything, condemning novels as 'slush for small minds' and widely derided as a shrew. Another joy of a character is Septimus Oakeshott, secretary to the Governor and secret ally to Smith, rescuing him from more than one scrape with an increasing sense of impatience. In a town full of those eager to elbow their way forward in the New World, Septimus is a rare man of honour. Is Smith one such as he? Yet, for all that he is happy to be a man of mystery, occasionally we gain glimpses of a man who just may be more moral, who expresses disdain at Septimus' liaison with the slave Achilles not because of Achilles' race but because as a slave, Achilles is more vulnerable than his master.

For all the veneer of respectability, no matter that the drawing-rooms of New York may be alike to those of London, there is no mistaking that Mr Smith has stumbled unprepared into a world far more wild than that which he has departed. French scalps adorn a gibbet in the marketplace, Pope Day descends into drunken chaos which leaves Mr Smith fleeing for his life. The people of this budding nation proclaim their allegiance to King George but there is such a sense of being adrift from familiar British values that one has a sense of rebellion brewing already. The sense of multiple worlds within this city is captured vividly as Smith runs from his attackers, in the company of Septimus, and at once point dashes into a strange house and crashes through a family's parlour.

Golden Hill wears its historical context lightly, with Spufford managing to set up the time period without apparent effort. Somehow we are pulled into this time period, within it, without any overly long paragraphs of set-up. The rhythm of the prose feels reminiscent of the novels I read at university. Yet, there is more happening here. Spufford experiments with meta-fiction, with Smith appearing as Juba in Cato, offering an early hint to what truly motivates our strangely unknowable protagonist. Spufford appears to break the fourth wall at various points within Golden Hill, apologising here for being unable to adequately describe a game of piquet and introducing certain blind-spots within the narrative with excuses such as 'I do not want to write this part of the story', but while these may appear to be the interventions of a Fielding-esque omniscient author, in fact we are being tricked still further, with a twist in the telling that I did not anticipate.

Golden Hill is a remarkably assured piece of work - it is easy to forget that this represents Spufford's debut novel. It is ambitious to frame a story around a character who evades all attempts to truly know him, that we should follow his every step and yet not be admitted into his confidence. Precisely how Mr Smith has come by his note is something that he chooses to keep to himself and similarly what his plans may be for the money provided he is able to live long enough to claim it. Yet for all that Smith is keeping from us, we can see that there is still a great deal of which he is ignorant. Not only is he easily tricked by Tabitha's falsehoods, but he is also an innocent abroad. He looks around New York and compares its cleanliness favourably to London, sees its freshness and does not understand what is behind it. Smith falls into calamity after calamity because he cannot comprehend the rules of this new country.

While Fielding's Tom Jones may sail through his troubles bruised but unbeaten, we do not have the same feeling of surety for Smith's safety. Despite the novel's generally exuberant tone, there are hair-raising incidents such as the roof-top chase and the duel which take the reader to some far darker places than those early novelists would ever have dared. While Golden Hill is in many ways a pastiche of Fielding and his contemporaries, Spufford conjures a vision of the infant New York that I could truly believe in; full of colonial trappings over a fierce and savage world. Yet, I feel that Spufford's finest achievement was how I have found myself coming back time and gain to the fate to scratchy Tabitha, with the final pages leaving me full to the brim with questions. Spufford may be coming to novel-writing late in his career, with Golden Hill, he reveals himself to be a true master of the form.

I did not finish, so don't feel I can give an honest review. There was nothing inherently bad, it probably just wasn't the book for me. It moved very slowly, and the language and dialog didn't flow for me.

This novel by Francis Stufford is a difficult read because the language and syntax are meant to reflect those of the 1700's. The story reminded me of other 18th century novels I have read, so I understood the plot, but that still didn't make it easy to read. I finished the novel, and I was glad that I did because the story ended with two plot twists that were frankly unforseen. The reader learns the true identities of Mr. Smith and the narrator. It is the last revelation that is problematical because, by making the narrator a participating character in the story, it seems implossible that that person would know all that transpired between Mr. Smith and the other characters word for word. That character was not present to witness intimately the actions of Mr. Smith. The narrator needed to be an omniscient narrator.
I would recommend this novel to fans of historical fiction who are versed in 18th century literature. It would be entertaining for that kind of reader.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. I love historical literature, and this author nailed it. I enjoyed the characters, the plot, the fact that it actually read like a classic novel such as Charles Dickens. It was a fun read!

It didn't grab my attention. I was so looking forward to reading it too :-( It just didn't flow for me.

The only book by Francis Spufford I’d previously read was The Child that Books Built, so good I read it twice. Golden Hill is his first venture into non fiction and has already won the Costa prize for best first novel. If you’ve read reviews saying that this is a brilliant book, trust them, because it is. The story is set in New York in 1746. A mysterious young man, ‘Mr Smith’ arrives with a note for £1,000, to be drawn on a New York business. It’s a small city and Smith is soon the talk of it. Rich or a fraudster? What does he want? I’m not keen on historical novels these days, especially if they purport to be written in the style of the period. Spufford has obviously read Fielding, Sterne et al but there’s not a hint of pastiche here. As far as I was concerned, the writing was pitch perfect throughout. There was just one sentence which I thought could have come straight out of a Georgette Heyer novel: ‘I may be equally a gilded sprig of the bon ton, or a flash cully working the inkhorn lay.’ The adventures of a young man (and what adventures!) all in the space of one year are in the picaresque Tom Jones tradition but here everything happens in one place. The descriptions of New York are brilliant (yes, that word again) and the large cast of characters interesting. You get such a good impression of a new world, where a city is only a mile or two away from wilderness and unimaginable spaces and terrors. In comparison, smelly old London seems a safe place to be. Having seen Richard Smith through wealth, ruin, love and near death we naturally hope for a satisfactory conclusion to the mystery. And get it.

As we set off to walk around New York with Mr. Smith in 1746, we know that this will be a New York very different from today’s. The surprise comes when we realize that the people we are meeting are so very much the same as we would meet today. I loved this book. Mr. Smith’s triumphs and heartbreaks are very real and enthralling.

Francis Spufford has written a brilliant and cracking historical yarn for his fictional debut. It is set in the New York of 1746, it has a population of 7ooo and, whilst unlike the great city of today, the seeds of its future are indisputably present. An Englishman, Richard Smith, arrives in New York and on him he has a £1000 bill of exchange, a veritable fortune at that time. He is a man of mystery to the reader until the end of the book. He is greeted with suspicion and questions from the locals, who is he? Where did he get the money from? What are his intentions? Smith goes to Golden Hill Street to see the trader Lovell, who has sixty days to make good on the bill. Lovell is going to struggle to pay up, and this novel is about what occurs in those sixty days to Smith.

Smith meets a wide range of wealthy Manhattonites, who all know one another rather well, and he goes high and low in his adventures. He is a target for a number of women, given his wealth as he is deemed a good prospect because of his wealth. Smith finds himself falling in and out of love, and encountering the good, the mad, the odd and the bad. He finds himself on the roofs, in duels, and card games. His relationship with Tabitha, the daughter of Lovell, has bite, wit and humour. There are numerous literary references to Shakespeare and other writers. The tale is presented in the language of the eighteenth century which is easy to grasp. The central mystery of who is Richard Smith is resolved at the end.

There is plentiful humour, some of it bawdy, and comic touches which make this a thoroughly entertaining read but there is darkness too. It has a complex plot and a narrative which never fails to grip the reader. It is a story of race, class, slavery, gender and sexuality. This is a superb read which I highly recommend. Thanks to Scribner for an ARC.

This kind of historical fiction is not easy to write, and unfortunately this writer falls into many of the common traps of the genre.

This is a book for you if you enjoy long (long) beautifully written descriptions and an extremely meandering narrative that isn't overly interested in getting to its destination. It does have one, and one that is both poignant and unbelievable - one that is based on 21st century concerns and ideals rather than those of the 18th century, although that's fine, of course, in a contemporary novel. All the same, I struggled with this book and just couldn't love it in the way that I expected and wanted to.
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Spufford makes this about modern identities: gender, race, sexuality though does this in an unobtrusive way until the end. Which is slightly problematic as if you're not paying attention, it can creep up out of nowhere. Alongside these concerns are two coming-of-age stories: that of Richard Smith who learns from his experiences, and Tabitha who doesn't have the courage to step outside of her self-made cage - though her scream at the end is one of agency. The repetition of the term 'liberty' used in lots of different contexts is also a clue threaded through the narrative of what it's ultimately about.

There are lots of literary references and echoes here: The Taming of the Shrew as well as the explicitly-referenced Much Ado About Nothing; and a performance of a play by Addison that pitches African Juba against Roman Sempronius and has Juba emerge as the moral victor. Spufford mentions Fielding, Smollett and Hogarth in his afterword, but this was more Dickensian than akin to Fielding for me, often tipping over into what felt like pastiche. Fielding's exuberance and amiability, his moral schema, and, above all, his narratorial interventions have no purchase in this book.

Smith's mission is a mystery throughout and I think I would have preferred to have known what it was much earlier, especially after the revelation that comes in his letter to his father: it would have given him some much-needed sympathy from me, and drawn us into his plans.

Ultimately I found this frustrating and too full of filler writing that adds style but little substance: there is a story somewhere in all this, but it involves a lot of wading through the extraneous to get to it.

My first year of college I took a survey course in English Lit. We read Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding, published in 1742. "Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes," the book is picaresque and bawdy, a new literary form: the novel. I loved it and went on to read more Fielding, and Richardson, and Smollett.

I requested a galley of Golden Hill because I had read Francis Spufford's marvelous book I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination, which I savored for its beautiful writing and enjoyed for its subject matter. Golden Hill is Spufford's first foray into fiction.

A Novel of Old New York: Golden Hill is a 'colonial counterpart to Joseph Andrews or David Simple,' the story of a young man learning the hard way about how things operate in the New World.

Mr. Smith, our hero, undergoes a series of unfortunate incidents, including imprisonment, a duel, and a death sentence. His morals are corrupted by a lusty older woman, alienating him from his true love. He has come to New York on a secret mission, which makes him suspect. Could he be a French spy? At the end, he pulls off a venture that amazes everyone.

Spufford fully captures the spirit of the early novels by Henry Fielding. The reader is addressed by the author. There are page-long sentences. Hilarious situations abound.

Readers will marvel at how little they know about 18th c New York, then a city of 7,000 persons and still very Dutch. New Yorkers are loyal to the King of England, and Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated with riot and mayhem. Wealth is on paper, with limited paper and coin currency in circulation; each colony has its own specie, and international coin circulates. Smith participates in a staging of Addison's play Cato with its theme of liberty--George Washington's favorite play.

The end of the novel has a surprise revelation that feels more modern in sensibility but is satisfying.

Reading this novel was such fun. It may be time to revisit Fielding again.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.