The Quincunx

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The Quincunx, Charles Palliser’s debut novel (also known as The Inheritance of John Huffam), was published in 1989. It feels like a Dickensian mystery set in early 19th-century England, but Palliser adds modern twists: an ambiguous plot and shifting, unreliable narrators that invite multiple readings.

Plot in brief: In London, two lawyers hold a secret meeting that leads to the disclosure of a hidden document tied to a crucial inheritance. Meanwhile, young John Mellamphy grows up in the countryside with his mother, Mary, unaware of the Huffam name. Their lives become endangered as the search for the document intensifies.

Structure and style: The book has a deliberately intricate design. It is divided into five parts, each named after one of the five families connected to the inheritance. Each part contains five books, and each book has five chapters. At the start of each part, a quincunx motif of the families’ heraldic roses appears, and later it reappears as numbers 1 through 5 at the start of each book. The narration shifts between an omniscient voice and more personal narration, with a central journal that is itself divided into five “Relations” and contains missing pages that allow for multiple interpretations of events. The plot hinges on inheritance law and the timing of John Huffam’s birth, anchored to real historical details like the Ratcliff Highway murders, the Great Comet of 1811, Wellington’s campaigns, and the Rose Act about parish records. The hero’s name even hints at a Dickens connection.

Themes and tone: Palliser portrays a wide spectrum of 19th-century society, from the gentry to the poor, using rich historical detail and satire. The book blends homage to Dickens with a darker, more unsettled view of justice, showing uncertainty and suffering rather than clear moral guarantees. It also borrows from Mayhew’s London to deepen its social realism.

Reception and significance: The Quincunx was a surprising bestseller and is noted for its deep research, complex structure, and bold treatment of inheritance and law. Critics have likened Palliser’s approach to Dickens, while also highlighting the novel’s postmodern layer of ambiguity and reinterpretation. It won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction in 1991.

Bottom line: A dense, meticulously crafted mystery about family secrets, property, and truth, told in a way that rewards patient reading and careful attention to structure.