An Unpardonable Crime (2003)
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Andrew Taylor's historical novel was first published in Great Britain by Flamingo as The American Boy, which Open Library records as a 2003 edition (Open Library), and in the United States as An Unpardonable Crime, read here. In England in 1819, Thomas Shield, a new master at a school outside London, tutors a young American boy named Edgar Allan Poe and his friend Charles Frant, and is drawn into the affairs of Charles's mother and of the wealthy Stephen Carswall. (Open Library)
Watches
- Breguet pocket watch
- Carswall's watch is a repeater, and he presses its button to make it chime (p. 426). At dinner he shows it to his guests as a Breguet, "the finest watchmaker in the world", claiming Napoleon's officers carried such watches; the claims are his. Stricken at the climax, he lies with his fingers folded round the open Breguet; Shield sounds its chime at his ear and pushes it into his waistcoat pocket (pp. 431 to 432). Shield, who now has it, writes that it still keeps perfect time (pp. 468, 471). A repeating pocket watch; no number is given.
Source text: “Abraham-Louis Breguet, sir — the finest watchmaker in the world.” Mr. Carswall glanced fondly at the timepiece in his palm. (Andrew Taylor, An Unpardonable Crime, scan cataloged as Theia, 2005, p. 200; Internet Archive scan OCR)