The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck

The lost prince, the perfect pretender, and the power of belief to make a king.

Mary Shelley turns to historical fiction to reimagine the life of a figure whose existence blurred the line between rightful heir and daring pretender. With measured sympathy and narrative breadth, she transforms a contested episode of English history into a meditation on legitimacy, loyalty, and the shaping force of belief.

Perkin Warbeck emerges as a man sustained by the conviction—or possibility—that he is Richard, Duke of York, one of the lost princes in the Tower. Supported by foreign courts and followers who see in him a symbol of restoration, he moves through a Europe alive with political intrigue and shifting allegiance. Yet beneath the outward pageantry of claim and counterclaim lies a more intimate struggle: the effort to reconcile identity with circumstance, and destiny with doubt. Those who gather around him must weigh faith against prudence, while the broader forces of power and suspicion draw steadily closer.

Warbeck claims to be the younger son of Edward IV, smuggled out of the Tower after the murder of his brother. He finds support in Burgundy, France, Scotland, and Ireland. He marries a Scottish noblewoman. He invades England. He fails. He is captured, imprisoned, and eventually hanged. Shelley treats him not as an impostor or a hero, but as a man trapped by the stories others tell about him—and the story he must tell himself to survive.

This is Shelley at her most historically ambitious and psychologically nuanced: a novel about the politics of belief, the loneliness of the pretender, and the tragic gap between who we are and who we are called to be. The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck is the forgotten novel of a writer who understood that history is never just fact—it is also fable.

• Published in 1830, Mary Shelley’s second historical novel, following Valperga (1823)

• A sympathetic portrait of Perkin Warbeck, the man who claimed to be one of the lost princes in the Tower

• Essential reading for anyone interested in Mary Shelley’s range as a novelist beyond Frankenstein

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears, or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that a crown is only as real as the belief that puts it on a head.

About the Author

Mary Shelley (1797–1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in London, she was the daughter of the philosopher William Godwin and the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1816, she married the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck was published in 1830, following her earlier historical novel Valperga (1823). The novel reflects Shelley’s deep engagement with questions of legitimacy, identity, and political power—themes she also explored in Frankenstein and The Last Man. It was less successful than her earlier works, in part because the historical novel market was dominated by Sir Walter Scott. Recent scholarship has revived interest in Perkin Warbeck, recognizing its psychological complexity and its nuanced treatment of a figure history has usually dismissed as a fraud. Shelley died in London in 1851.