A convicted servant-girl in 1850s Canada, imprisoned since sixteen for the axe-murder of her employer and his housekeeper-mistress, is interviewed by a young doctor probing her patchy, contradictory memories of the killings while she recalls her immigrant childhood and the fatal household she worked in before the crime.
Books mentioned in Alias Grace (9)
Life in the Clearings by Susanna Moodie: “I first encountered the story of Grace Marks through Susanna Moodie's Life in the Clearings (1853)”
The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott: “She'd taken a copy of The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott out of the library”
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens: “has stated publicly that she is very fond of Charles Dickens, and in especial of Oliver Twist.”
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: “He is surprised to find a clergyman reading Hawthorne...especially after The Scarlet Letter...”
The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning: epigraph — Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 1869.
The Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton: epigraph — Isabella Beeton, Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1859-61.
The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore: epigraph — Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House, 1854.
The Earthly Paradise by William Morris: epigraph — William Morris, The Earthly Paradise, 1868.
Maud by Alfred Tennyson: epigraph — Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Maud, 1855.