1 h 21 minAudiobook16 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 1 h 21 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
When identities can be switched, how do you know whose motives to trust?
The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim puts switched identities and hidden motives at the heart of a mystery thriller. First published in 1920, the book invites you to question the link between who a person appears to be and what they intend.
The title places impersonation at the centre of the mystery. The subtitle, A Thriller of Switched Identities and Hidden Motives, gives you its essential tension: identity can mislead, and intentions remain concealed. If that combination draws you in, this is a book to open without knowing more.
What you’ll discover
- Oppenheim's mystery thriller Enter The Great Impersonation through its defining premise of switched identities and hidden motives.
- Identity as a puzzle Consider what you can trust when someone's apparent identity becomes an open question.
- Motives beneath the surface Look beyond an apparent identity to consider the intentions it might hide.
- A title worth questioning Keep the promise of The Great Impersonation in mind as you begin reading.
- A mystery from 1920 Explore a mystery thriller first published in 1920, with impersonation at its heart.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy spy stories set before the Great War, country houses with a ghost in the park, drawing-room duels of wit, and tales of double lives and mistaken identity.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two old schoolmates meet in the bush
- A drugged drink and a stolen name
- Sir Everard walks into a London office
- Seaman explains the rules of the game
- Peace talk at the Embassy, ghosts at the Hall
- A dagger at dawn and a childlike wife
- The Kaiser, the guns and a snowy trail
- Who is who, and what duty costs
- How Oppenheim tells it
Who’s who
- Everard DomineyThe English baronet who returns to Norfolk after eleven years away, rich, steady and stiffly correct, and wants to be accepted as master of Dominey Hall.
- Rosamund, Lady DomineyHis fragile wife, once driven mad by the night of a fight, who has tried to kill him and now doubts that he is her husband.
- Otto SeamanA round, cheerful German with a friendship league as his cover, who watches over the plan and fears anything he does not understand.
- Princess Stephanie EiderstromA rich Hungarian widow who believes the man she meets in London is her banished lover and will not give him up.
- Prince TerniloffThe German Ambassador, a gentle idealist who sincerely believes his country wants peace with England and hates the whole business of spying.
- Caroline, Duchess of WorcesterDominey's sharp-tongued cousin, who once cared for him, sees that he has changed, and guards Rosamund's happiness.
- Mrs UnthankLady Dominey's grim attendant, who blames Dominey for the loss of her son Roger and fills the house with talk of a ghost.
- Doctor HarrisonThe retired family doctor, blunt and loyal to Lady Dominey, who insists her cure depends on the man who has come home.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 1 h 21 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 16 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Die große Maskerade in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Die große Maskerade
by E. Phillips Oppenheim · 1920
A German baron plans to take an Englishman's name, and a wife with a dagger waits at Dominey Hall.
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In short
The Great Impersonation is a spy thriller by E. Phillips Oppenheim, the English storyteller who died in 1946.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two old schoolmates meet in the bush
The book opens in German East Africa. Everard Dominey, an English baronet, has been lost for weeks after his hired soldiers looted his camp and ran off with his compass. He follows thin wisps of smoke through the scrub and crashes headfirst into a clearing. When he wakes, he is lying on a narrow bed under a bamboo roof, and he wants to know where on earth he is.
His host is a tall, slim German in spotless white, Major General Baron Leopold von Ragastein, the military commandant of the colony. The two men stare at each other, because they look remarkably alike. The German has much the better of it. His eyes are bright, his mouth is firm and his body is lithe, while Dominey looks like a man worn out by fever and whisky.
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What is The Great Impersonation about?
It is a spy thriller set just before the First World War. A German baron plans to take an English baronet's name and live in England, and the story follows the people who meet him in London and at Dominey Hall in Norfolk.
Who is Leopold von Ragastein?
Von Ragastein is a German baron and general who commands the military in East Africa. He was once Sigismund Devinter, a schoolmate of Everard Dominey at Eton and Oxford, and he looks remarkably like him.
What is the Black Wood in the book?
The Black Wood is a dark, boggy wood near Dominey Hall where Roger Unthank vanished after a fight. Villagers believe his ghost haunts it, and its howls beneath Lady Dominey's window frighten everyone.
The author
E. Phillips Oppenheim
1866–1946 · English thriller novelist
Edward Phillips Oppenheim was an English novelist, born in London in 1866. He lived in Leicester and later on Guernsey, where he died in 1946. He wrote novels and short stories, including The Yellow Crayon (1903), The Zeppelin’s Passenger (1918), and The Great Impersonation (1920).
More by E. Phillips Oppenheim
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