DAVID ADAMS reads UK actor Paterson Joseph’s debut novel about the extraordinary life of Georgian Charles Ignatius Sancho…
Paterson Joseph
The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho
Dialogue Books, UK, 2022
ISBN-13: 978-0349702384
“It’s an engaging and lively read – reflecting Joseph’s portrayal of Sancho himself – and is written from Sancho’s perspective as he relates the story of his life to his son Billy.”
Captured a famed Thomas Gainsborough portrait, Charles Ignatius Sancho had, by an measure, an extraordinary life. Born the son of an enslaved woman on a slave ship as it was crossing the Atlantic, Sancho was orphaned at a young age and sent to London.
There, after a harsh childhood in the care of three sisters in Greenwich during which he receives an informal but wide education thanks to the kindness of the Duke of Montagu, an aquaintance of the sisters, he enters service of the nobility and rose to some fame in Georgian society, making a name for himself as a composer, a “man of letters” and an advocate for the abolition of the vile trade in human beings.
In this, his debut novel, Paterson Joseph – an actor who performances include appearances in recent TV shows Vigil and the futuristic Noughts and Crosses, has brought Sancho’s life to the page with a fictional account drawing on what is recorded of his life including the famous Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho which were published after his death in 1780.
It’s an engaging and lively read – reflecting Joseph’s portrayal of Sancho himself – and is written from Sancho’s perspective as he relates the story of his life to his son Billy. Two-thirds of the novel concerns the first 23 years of Sancho’s life; in the remaining third the reader is taken somewhat speedily through the second half of his life through a series of vignettes on key moments including the moment he became the first man of African descent to vote in an English election and his correspondence and meeting with famed writer Laurence Stern.
He’s only one of numerous luminaries of the Georgian world that we encounter through Sancho’s eyes – everyone from Shakespearan actor David Garrick to lexicographer Samuel Johnson and even the King. We’re also exposed to the horrors of slavery in the Caribbean through a series of letters Sancho exchanges with his future wife, Anne Osbourne.
While the circumstances of Sancho’s life are certainly extraordinary, Paterson lets Sancho’s quick wit and humour carry the story. While this provides some interesting insights into what the man behind the name may have been like, it does leave the novel a little unbalanced – while much time is spent on his early life, it feels as if the reader is rushed through some of the key moments of his later life.
It’s a strong debut, however, and shines a light on a man whose story is certainly worth the retelling. And, as a bonus, scan a QR code on the back of the book to hear Paterson Joseph take you on a tour of sites related to Sancho in London.
