Josephine Tey: Alan Grant

Josephine Tey: Alan Grant

In The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, Alan Grant was biased towards Richard’s innocence. He has a stack of books in his hospital room but thinks they’re all predictable and boring. He has nothing to do but stare at the ceiling until his good friend Marta Hallard brings him several portraits to study. Out of all the portraits he was shown he becomes fascinated with the one of King Richard III. Grant’s new obsession to find out if Richard murdered his nephews causes him to seek different feedback from different people. Two of those people being Marta Hallard and Brent Carradine.

Alan Grant is the type of person that does not like to do things that do not interest him, no matter how bored he might be. He preferred looking at the ceiling than to read the stack of books he had sitting around in his hospital room. Many might probably ask why he would do such of thing. The reason was simple, “authors today wrote so much to a patter that their public expected it” (Tey 14). Alan was bored of the “same ol’” books with the predictable story lines. He became enthralled with Richard III after seeing his portrait and was interested to know how people knew about Richard III, or at least how they knew who killed his nephews. After questioning several people they all had the same source; hearsay. Even Sir Thomas More’s history of Richard III was hearsay and that’s what disgusted Alan the most. He displays frustration when he says “It’s a damned piece of hearsay and a swindle”, but who can blame him (Tey 82). If I were trying to investigate something but all I kept getting was he said she said type of information, I would be upset. The thing that I admire most about him is that once he gets into something he sustains it and he did not let the hearsay stop him from trying to figure out the truth which is why him and Brent get along so well.

Aside from Brent,