It took me a little while to settle into this book. The highly-descriptive prose is very different from what I usually read. Once acclimatised, I grew to love the vibrant characters brought to life on the pages and also the humour present in spite of the serious themes.

I did feel the story lost momentum in the section told through the exchange of letters between Charles and Anne, As Anne was abroad at the time and a very significant event took place there, I suppose the section was necessary.

All in all, a welcome departure from my tried and tested genres. An emotional story of hope even in the hardest of times.

Story of unfortunate child, sold into slavery, taken in by three sisters as a fashionable accessory. Sancho suffers many hardships and hates his life, he runs away and comes to the attention of a Lord and his wife, they secretly educate him, which leads to his imprisonment and downfall.
Sancho manages to get odd jobs to survive and meets a woman who he falls in love with, their path is difficult and through their correspondence we learn more about their lives. Eventually Sancho and Anne are together and with each successive child he has to work harder to support his growing family.
Sancho is overweight and has been since childhood his health suffers..
The stories of slavery and Sancho's involvement with the abolitionist cause is well documented but at times confusing.
I found the style, particularly the letters not engaging.
Thank you NetGalley for this title

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Paterson Joseph uses the style of works such as David Copperfield and Jane Eyre to depict the life of Charles Ignatius Sancho and bring to life some Black British history that has rarely been explored. Without dwelling on the tragedies of slavery and the racism of 18th century British society, Joseph nonetheless illustrates the difficulties faced by a Black man (albeit a privileged one) trying to make his way in that age. Charles Ignatius Sancho was a larger-than-life character and this book shows him as such, without shying away from the more difficult elements of his story. Joseph is a strong writer and it'll be interesting to see what he does next in this arena.

I really love Paterson Joseph, and the same for Sancho, but this novel didn't quite grab me enough. I felt it stood back too much from the action: a bit of a classic 'tell not show'. A bit more showing would be nice: as it is, it revisits the relatively well-known events of Sancho's life.

An incredible work of historical fiction. So we'll researched. I adore finding out about historical figures I had not know about before. I found this a fascinating book.

Sadly I couldn't get into this book at all. The premise was brilliant and this period of history is one I've always found interesting, but this wasn't for me.
The style seemed disjointed and a little clunky, which meant I just couldn't engage with the characters.

I enjoyed the writing and as I had never even heard of Sancho I'm glad that that gap in my knowledge has been filled. When I started reading the book I hadn't even realised that he was not a fictitious character, but what a life he had, despite being born into slavery. I feel that Paterson Joseph really did his research as I did check some of the details out, particularly the Novar bit as I used to live near that estate.
Thank you to the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read the book via NetGalley

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho is a delightful book, perfect for fans of period drama and other historical fiction. Paterson Joseph has created a wonderful work that breathes life into a man with exuberance and depth, having undergone many trials, that ultimately leads to great feats, including working onstage as Othello and becoming the first black person to cast a vote in England. You truly feel his joy and fear in the happenings of his life; it’s as if you’re there, experiencing them with him. I implore you to read it and not be charmed.

This fits into the fictionalised real lives genre – in this case the life of a black writer and composer who lived in Regency London. As you might expect there are significant challenges facing him – and they are presented in this in the guise of a diary designed for his son to read when he is older (and it is suggested that Sancho will not be around to tell him them himself). Sancho was born on a slave ship and was given as a gift to three sisters who brought him up to be their servant before he escaped from them. I won’t say much more than that because it gives too much away – maybe I have already. The author is the actor Paterson Joseph who has spent two decades researching the life of his main character which he turned into a play before he wrote this novel. I really enjoyed reading it - a fascinating life, interestingly told.

I came to be reading this book because I'm a fan of the acting work of its author and, having heard him talk about the novel in an interview, I was fascinated to see how his debut attempt would turn out. I was quickly drawn into the well-realised world of 18th century London and the life of its protagonist. Born into slavery and with its shadow continually hanging over him, he gradually making his way in the world, all while sharing his inner monologue. The language is brilliant, with surprising turns of phrase and historical observations which demonstrate the great length of time Joseph has spent with this character and researching the period.

Joseph aims for a book in the style of Great Expectations or Tristram Shandy and does a very commendable job of it. Though it drags towards the end, losing a lot of its momentum as the bigger problems are concluded, this is a remarkably assured first attempt. I would be delighted to see whether Joseph follows this up with another novel and how he fares when moving into more unfamiliar territory.

I really enjoy fictionalisations of real life historical characters, and this was a good one. I new nothing about him and went away to find 0ut more. These stories are so important in this BLM times. Thank you.

An excellent piece of historical fiction based on the life of a real person, with period appropriate language and syntax – always appreciated and something all those Jane Austen imitators would do well to study! This was a great book, charting the fortunes and misfortunes of a black Georgian man in 18th C England.

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho is very much a labour of love, the fruits of the author’s 20-year obsession with Sancho’s story. First brought to life in a one-man show performed in New York, and now in this novel, Paterson Joseph has taken a real person and, in his own words, ‘performed an action of fiction on him’.

The book takes the form of extracts from Sancho’s diaries interspersed with letters to his son, Billy. The diaries document Sancho’s colourful and eventful life, from his birth aboard a slave ship to becoming a successful business man (ironically trading in sugar, cocoa and tobacco, the products of slavery), being the first Black Briton to have the vote and becoming a leading light in the early abolitionist movement. But the diaries also reveal Sancho’s regrets about things he has done or failed to do. He wonders, ‘Why burden a child with his father’s sins? Perhaps these papers are best hidden – discarded?’

Sancho is a delightfully eccentric character and the author has created a distinctive voice for him so you feel he is speaking directly to you. One newspaper review has described it as an act of ‘literary ventriloquism’. I was fortunate enough to hear Paterson reading – or I should say, performing – two excerpts from the book at Henley Literary Festival in October. It was wonderful to hear Sancho brought to life, complete with lisp and rather affected manner of speech. True, Sancho can be a little pompous at times but he is also amusingly self-deprecating about his mistakes. And in the periods when he’s in the very depths of despair your heart bleeds for him. (I guarantee you will feel the same about Tilly, the young woman who assists Sancho at a particularly perilous moment in his life.) Although Sancho experiences periods of terrible hardship and cruelty, he also rubs shoulders with luminaries of Georgian society such as William Hogarth, Samuel Johnson, David Garrick and Thomas Gainsborough, entertaining at musical soirées and even taking to the stage.

However, Sancho is a man stuck in the middle. He’s Black but his life has been spent apart from others like him. He’s experienced a lavish lifestyle but as the child of slaves has no legal status. He’s African by birth but has lived the life of an Englishman, thanks to a wealthy patron, feeling at times that being smartly turned out and slightly portly he does not correspond to the stereotype of a Black person. As he says, ‘I did not present a figure of destitution, but one of gross indulgence.’ At one point he wonders if he will always be ‘the outside man, looking in’.

This changes, in more ways than one, when Sancho meets John Clarke-Osborne. He issues Sancho an invitation: ‘Come with me one day soon, friend. Let me show you how the African entertains himself in London’. In one of the book’s memorable scenes, Sancho is taken to the Black Tar Tavern where he witnesses, pretty much for the first time, those he calls ‘my people’. It’s a lively affair with music and dancing.

In his Author’s Note, Paterson Joseph writes that ‘the reader who awaits a tale filled with whips and curses and rapes and murders of Black People by White People in every chapter […] will not find much to please you’. However we do get an insight into the evils of the slave trade in the section of the book made up of letters between Sancho and his future wife, Anne. These are full of their affection for each other and their hopes for the future. However, Anne’s letters also describe some of the horrific treatment experienced by slaves working on the plantations of Barbados and Antigua.

Charles Ignatius Sancho would be a remarkable character if he was the product of an author’s imagination. That he was a real person makes him even more remarkable. In the words of the author, Charles Ignatius Sancho is “A hero. A man. An African. An Artist. Erudite. Wise. Grand. Flawed”. The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho is a thoroughly entertaining historical novel and an impressive debut.

I enjoyed reading this book, although I did struggle with the vernacular as I am quite common and that was occasionally a barrier

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A very intelligent, interesting and educational read fictionalizing the life of Charles Ignatius Sancho a British abolitionist, writer and composer.

Definitely a must read a little slow in places. Recommended.

Joseph Patterson’s novel, The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, is a delight of human triumph! At times harrowing, it relates momentous events in the life of the protagonist, Sancho, who is also the narrator, in diary form to his son as a memento. Hugely informative and powerfully provocative, this novel highlights the difficulties evident in acceptance and being accepted based solely on skin colour and perceived social differences. I thoroughly recommend a reading! Loved it!

Intriguing read. Really enjoyed it.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this book in exchange for my review.

An important story, as a fictionalised account of the life of Charles Ignatius Sancho - born a slave and one of the UK's leading black abolitionists, who rubbed shoulders with many famous greats of the regency era including David Garrick and Dr Johnson.

It is an extraordinary life and a wonderful story, told in the style of a series of diary entries - with added commentaries directed to Sancho's son, and a couple of letters between Sancho and his wife. It is very much written in "a regency style" - which isn't exactly my cup of tea. I personally find it a bit of a drag in places - for me the style ends up taking away from the pacing. However, those who like their regency in regency style with a bit of regency on the top, will probably not have the same issues that I did.

Yr9+ - be aware, content warnings for racism and discussion of rape.

“This is an imaginative telling of the life of a Black man who breathed London’s air two hundred years before I walked its streets. …This is the tale of a lucky African orphan, who despite being born in abject slavery, rose to become a leading light of the early abolitionist movement.” - from opening Authors Note.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group U.K. Dialogue Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho’ by Paterson Joseph.

For over twenty years British actor Paterson Joseph has been researching the life of Charles Ignatius Sancho, an 18th Century Black Briton, who was involved in the abolitionist movement. In 2015 he wrote and starred in a solo play ‘Sancho: An Act of Remembrance’.

This is Joseph’s debut novel and as stated in the quote above is a fictional account of Sancho’s life. It is told in the form of a diary and letters that Sancho is revisiting and revising in 1775 following the birth of his son, Billy, with the intention of his receiving them when he has grown to manhood.

Sancho writes: “Much of the following comes from my diary entries over the years – I will record my retrospective interjections – these may be useful in aiding my Billy to navigate the story of your father’s life thus far.”

I found it an amazing work of literary historical fiction. I will admit that I had not heard of Charles Ignatius Sancho before this novel. I also felt that Paterson Joseph did well in portraying Georgian London in a manner that felt very authentic. Such attention to period detail, including the formality of society and language, is something that I look for in historical fiction as it allows for a greater sense of engagement.

I complemented my reading of an advance review copy with its unabridged audiobook edition narrated by the author. I found his reading very powerful.

Highly recommended.

This first book from author Paterson Joseph (better known as the extremely successful film and TV actor) performs an “act of fiction” on the life of the real historical figure Charles Ignatius Sancho, who lived from 1729 to 1780: the result is this imaginative retelling that “adds to the growing canon of Black historical fiction”, a Dickensian, Sternian-style adventure that first seeks to entertain, but that is built on years of research and hard facts about the true, pre-Windrush origins of Black British history. Born on a slave ship and orphaned shortly after his birth, young Charles is taken from a Caribbean plantation and sent to England, where he is to live with his owner’s three ‘maiden aunts’ as a fashionable addition to their household, acquiring the nickname ‘Sancho’ and discovering a talent for theatrical performances. He craves education but is denied it by the aunts, kept as an illiterate pet: his close friendship with housemaid Tilly enables him to explore more of London and stretch his wings, with the hope of one day truly taking flight. The first section of the book is a brilliant fever dream of whirling images and richly rendered short adventures: it’s not a stretch to imagine the tale filmed by Baz Luhrman, all jump cuts and sharp scene changes as young Charles tests the limits of his ‘freedom’ exploring the intoxicating worlds on offer in the capital while also avoiding the terrifying slave catcher Jonathan Sill. Charles mixes with the great and good of high society London from his uncertain position - not a slave, yet not free - and quickly becomes a curiosity to other Black Londoners, isolated from those who’d otherwise provide support and community. A later section of the book settles into epistolary letters between Charles and his new beloved, supporting each other and growing closer while sharing truly nightmarish tales of everyday life on a Caribbean plantation in the late 1700s. This book will inevitably make a superb drama for stage or screen, and will leave you curious to learn more about the real man who so inspired Joseph’s imagination: thought-provoking, enjoyable and hugely humbling all in the same pages.