At the close of the Victorian era, as now, privacy was power. The extraordinarilywealthy 5th Duke of Portland had a mania for it, hiding in his carriageand building tunnels between buildings to avoid being seen. In 1897,an elderly widow asked the court to exhume the grave of her late father-in-law, T. C.Druce, under the suspicion that he’d led a double life as the 5th Duke. The eccentricduke, Anna Maria contended, had faked his death as Druce, and her son should inheritthe Portland millions. Revealing a dark underbelly of Victorian society, Piu MarieEatwell evokes an era when the rise of sensationalist media blurred every fact into fictionand when family secrets and fluid identities pushed class anxieties to new heights.