Alexander Ashbrook, a gifted young aristocrat, is unaware that he even has a son, much less that his child has fallen into -and then been rescued from- the clutches of Otis Gardiner.
“A hidden side of eighteenth-century England: the world of infanticide and child slavery. Otis Gardiner, the Coram man, makes a vicious living disposing of the unwanted children and illegitimate offspring of distraught young women, rich and poor.
The center of this novel is the monstrous Otis Gardiner -a peddler known as “the Coram man” for his sham reputation as a representative of Thomas Coram’s famous foundling hospital in London. Utterly pitiless, Otis adds to his living by disposing of unwanted children and illegitimate offspring handed to him by distraught young women as he passes through towns and villagers and calls at wealthy country states.