This (Last Few) Week's Acquisitions (in England)

(It is possible that I brought some books home from London.)

• Imogen Hermes Gowar, The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock (Harvill Secker, 2018).  In the late eighteenth century, a man acquires a...mermaid?...and finds himself in entirely new social circles.  (British Museum)
• A. N. Wilson, Resolution: A Novel of the Boy Who Sailed with Captain Cook (Atlantic, 2016).  Historical novel about George Forster [Johann Georg Adam Forster] and, outside of his travels with Cook, his usually rather disappointing adventures.  (Waterstone's)
• Avi Sirlin, The Evolutionist: The Strange Tale of Alfred Russel Wallace (Aurora Metro, 2014).  Historical novel about the other guy who figured out the principles of natural selection.  (Waterstone's) 
• Jean-Christophe Rufin, The Dream Maker, trans. Alison Anderson (Europa, 2013).  Historical novel about Jacques Coeur.  (Waterstone's)
• John Keene, Counternarratives (Fitzcarraldo, 2015). Collection of novellas, mostly historical, some involving literary characters (a distant sequel to Huckleberry Finn).  (Foyles)
• James Hall, The Industry of Human Happiness (Lightning, 2018).  At the end of the Victorian period, a really self-involved pioneer in the art of recording finds himself enmeshed in murder.  (Foyles)
• Elizabeth Haynes, The Murder of Harriet Monckton (Myriad, 2018).  Haynes attempts a fictional solution to a real-life murder case from 1843.  (W. H. Smith)
• Anna-Marie Crowhurst, The Illumination of Ursula Flight (Allen & Unwin, 2018).  A young woman yearns to become a playwright during the Restoration period.  (British Library)
• David Hewson, Juliet & Romeo: A Novel Retelling (Dome, 2018).  A historical novel based on, yes, that Shakespeare play.  (British Library)
• Caryl Phillips, A View of the Empire at Sunset (Vintage, 2018).  Historical novel about the life of Jean Rhys.  (British Library)
• Maria McCann, Ace, King, Knave (Faber & Faber, 2013). Two women from very different social sets find themselves dealing with crises during the mid-eighteenth century.  (Oxfam)
• Lydia Syson, Mr. Peacock's Possessions (Zaffre, 2018).  A small family of colonists comes into conflict with a group of Pacific Islanders.  (Any Amount of Books)
• James Wilson, The Bastard Boy (Faber & Faber, 2004).  During the Seven Years' War, a man is sent from England to find his brother's child, with...untoward...results.  (Skoob)
• ---, Consolation (Faber & Faber, 2008).  A children's book author mourning the loss of his daughter has a chance encounter with a young woman who has also lost her child.  (Skoob)
• Nigel Williams, Witchcraft (Faber & Faber, 1987).  A 1980s soap opera writer and failed novelist becomes obsessed with a 17th-century religious fanatic.  (Skoob)
• J. MacDougall Hay, Gillespie (Canongate, 1993).  Reprint of Hay's 1914 historical novel about a power-hungry businessman in mid-Victorian Scotland.  (South Bank)
• Anne Laurence, W. R. Owens, and Stuart Sims, ed., John Bunyan and His England 1628-88 (Hambledon, 1990).  Collection of essays about Bunyan in his political, social, literary, and theological context.  (Skoob)