# The Original

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![The Original](https://quivercdn.com/covers/scribner/nell-stevens/the-original_978-13-9853-340-0-99c20c30.webp?v=2026-11-11%2004%3A44%3A55)

- Book: [The Original](https://www.bookquiver.com/nell-stevens/the-original) ([The Original.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/nell-stevens/the-original.md))
- Authors: [Nell Stevens](https://www.bookquiver.com/nell-stevens)
- Publisher: Scribner
- ISBN: 978-13-9853-340-0
- Pages: 400
- Published: 2026-04-23
- Language: en_US
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick grows up on the peripheries of a once-great household, an unwanted guest in her uncle’s home. She has unusual skills and unusual predilections: for painting, though faces elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls. Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena. After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is ready to come home. When Charles returns, unrecognisable and uncanny, a rift emerges between those who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. And Grace, whose intimate knowledge of forgeries is her own closely-guarded secret, must decide who and what to believe in, and what kind of life she wants to live. Deftly-plotted and shimmering with Nell Stevens’s distinctive intelligence, style and wit, THE ORIGINAL is a novel about the value of authenticity in art and in love, and what it means to be a true original.