It’s a terrible story: a middle-aged American man was attacked at his home in France by thieves who beat him with a baseball bat before making off with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry. The man’s last name, McDonald, and his ostensible ties to the McDonald’s fast food fortune rocketed the incident to international attention (in the form of ledes like, “These robbers were no Hamburglars”—keep it classy, New York Daily News).
In the days after the news broke, enterprising reporters discovered that there seemed to be no connection between Geoffrey McDonald, the victim of the home invasion, and McDonald’s, the home of the McRib.
In the age of the telephone and internet, such a case of assumed or alleged heirdom is quickly unraveled. But the Australia of the early 19th century was a different story. And that’s where Kirsten McKenzie’s new book, A Swindler’s Progress: Nobles and Convicts in the Age of Liberty, takes place.
Accused of forgery in 1835, a slight, balding man named John Dow shocked a Sydney courtroom by claiming he was Edward, Viscount Lascelles, eldest son of the powerful Earl of Harewood, and heir to one of Britain’s most spectacular fortunes. The Crown alleged he was a confidence trickster and serial impostor.
In what the Times Higher Education Supplement calls “a highly gripping narrative, its sociological insights conveyed largely through a series of striking human dramas,” McKenzie follows a fascinating tale of adventure and deceit across two worlds—those of British aristocrats and Australian felons—connected in an emerging age of opportunity and individualism, where personal worth (and wealth) battled power based on birth alone.
In this age of liberty, could one be anyone one wanted? How does one invent oneself in society? These are the questions that McKenzie takes up in her book. And as the McDonald’s incident illustrates, they are questions that retain their relevance even today.
