Phillip Margulies's epic debut BELLE CORA, based loosely on the life of the 19th-century prostitute of the same name, written in the form of a memoir by San Francisco's most powerful dowager (who has long-hidden her scandalous past), telling the story of her moral fall and material rise over the course of the century, carrying her from the farms, mills, drawing rooms (and bedrooms) of New York to the heart of the California gold rush...

Upon her death in 1919, Mrs. Francis Anderson, a wealthy and powerful dowager in San Francisco society, leaves behind a scandalous memoir revealing her former life as a prostitute and madame. So begins Phillip Margulies's delicious debut, BELLE CORA, framed as Belle's confessions, available for the first time in unabridged form. Born Arabella Goodwin to a rich and respected abolitionist family in New York City, she is suddenly orphaned at age nine and shipped off with her beloved youngest brother, Lewis, to live with her aunt and uncle on their hardscrabble farm. When her nemesis—her cousin Agnes—engineers Belle's downfall, Belle returns to the city of her youth where she puts her beauty and good-breeding to use, garnering the power and wealth to reclaim what has been taken from her and proving herself a distinctly American heroine: assertive, loyal, vengeful, and unapologetic.

Erudite and entertaining, BELLE CORA is a sweeping, female bildungsroman, a modern take on the tradition of Moll Flanders and Fanny Hill, and a (slightly dirty) Cinderella story narrated by a woman whose moral fall and material rise unmoor her from the conventional morality of her time. Originally the plan was for Doubleday to publish in 2 volumes. They are now publishing in 1. However, keep that in mind if publishers have their concerns about length – we would be open to the conversation of having this publish in 2 volumes internationally.

Phillip Margulies is the author of many published books on science, politics and history for a young adult audience. He has won two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships.
 

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