Sir Dominick Ferrand

What does a young writer do when he stumbles upon evidence that could destroy a dead man's reputation? Sir Dominick Ferrand follows Peter Baron, a struggling author scraping by in a grim London boarding house, whose purchase of a second-hand desk pulls him into a web of buried secrets. Hidden letters tucked inside reveal compromising truths about a recently deceased statesman, and Baron must decide whether to expose them, exploit them, or let them stay buried. The moral quandary deepens when he falls for the mysterious clairvoyant widow who shares his building, and discovers an unexpected talent for songwriting along the way. James wrote this novella with a lighter, more playful hand than his later masterpieces, yet the psychological complexity remains distinctly his. The result is a tale about the price of knowledge, the temptation of leverage, and what we owe to the reputations of the dead.