{"product_id":"the-country-schoolmaster-a-mystery-in-88-letters-kate-grenville","title":"The Country Schoolmaster: A Mystery in 88 Letters - Kate Grenville","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eI stood there holding the hundred-year-old letter with a feeling that was familiar from other archives, other bulging files of dog-eared paper. It was a blood-running-fast, itchy-palm, eyes-wide-open feeling of stumbling on something. A story …’\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRummaging around in the archives one afternoon, Kate Grenville comes across an innocuous-looking file full of letters about a schoolteacher in country New South Wales. Intrigued, she keeps reading – and discovers a tale far more curious and complex than first appears. Was Joseph Connor savagely beating the students in his care? Or was he the victim of a small-town vendetta? And what went so terribly wrong between him and his daughter?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eUltimately, Grenville simply has to know: was Connor a victim or a villain? Part colonial cold case, part locked-room mystery, part the dance of a writer's imagination among facts and semi-facts, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Country Schoolmaster\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a book like no other. In it, the novelist comes to understand the seductive pleasure of story-making, but also its dangerous limitations.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublished September 29, 2026\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nice Stack Of Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45224986017992,"sku":null,"price":36.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0595\/5567\/6360\/files\/TheCountrySchoolmaster.jpg?v=1790744362","url":"https:\/\/nicestackofbooks.myshopify.com\/products\/the-country-schoolmaster-a-mystery-in-88-letters-kate-grenville","provider":"Nice Stack Of Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}