The Fetch

A fetch… something ‘that comes again, or is brought back’.

Adelaide Fenton is obsessed with the idea of marrying James Daintry, the sole heir of an old, aristocratic, and rather eccentric family, the members of which have all met tragic ends. James’s great-uncle, Lord Seagrove, was hanged at Tyburn for the murder of a village girl, Harriet Bond, whose ‘fetch’ is said to haunt the folly at Charters, one of the family’s estates. While Adelaide is busy planning for her marriage, her younger sister is busy dabbling in blackmail, and her mother is busy consulting her solicitor in the hope of gaining financially from the whole business, James, convinced that he is being haunted by Harriet’s ghost, is slowly descending into madness.

Though inspired by the famous 1846 breach of promise court case of Mary Elizabeth Smith versus the Right Hon. Washington Sewallis Shirley, Earl Ferrers, The Fetch is no mere retelling of events leading up to the trial. It is a dark and sinister tale of murder, conspiracy, obsession, and insanity… and the dangers of reading too many romances obtained from the circulating library.

The Fetch was first published in the UK by Hutchinson & Co. in 1942; it was published in the US under the title The Spectral Bride. This new edition of the novel includes the essay that inspired it: ‘The Ambiguities of Miss Smith’ by William Roughead. It also includes a 19-page biographical essay, ‘Margaret Campbell: The Lady with the Hundred Names’, and ‘Whatever Became of Miss Smith?’, a follow-up to Roughead’s essay, both by Gina R. Collia.