[1] Sue Trinder, an orphan raised in "a Fagin-like den of thieves" by her adoptive mother, Mrs Sucksby, is sent to help Richard "Gentleman" Rivers seduce a wealthy heiress.

Sue travels to Briar, Maud's secluded home in the country, where she lives a sheltered life under the care of her uncle, Christopher Lilly.

She describes her early life being raised by the nurses in the mental asylum where her mother died, and the sudden appearance of her uncle, who arrives when she is eleven to take her to Briar to be his secretary.

Her induction into his rigid way of life is brutal; Maud is made to wear gloves constantly to preserve the surfaces of the books she is working on, and is denied food when she tires of labouring with her uncle in his library.

Distressed, and missing her previous home, Maud begins to demonstrate sadistic tendencies, biting and kicking her maid, Agnes, and her abusive carer, Mrs Stiles.

Shockingly, Maud reveals that her uncle's work is not to compile a dictionary, but to assemble a bibliography of literary pornography, for the reference of future generations.

After initial hesitation, Maud agrees to the plan and receives her new maid, Sue, weeks later, pretending to know nothing about the plot.

Sue, it turns out, was Marianne Lilly's true daughter, and Maud one of the many orphaned infants who had been placed in Mrs Sucksby's care after being abandoned.

She had planned the switch of the two girls for seventeen years, and enlisted the help of Gentleman to bring Maud to her in the months before Sue's eighteenth birthday, when she would become legally entitled to the money.

She makes one attempt to escape to the home of one of her uncle's friends, Mr Hawtrey, but he turns her away, appalled at the scandal that she has fallen into, and eager to preserve his own reputation.

Charles, a simple boy, has been pining for the charming attentions of Gentleman to such an extent that Mr Way, the warden of Briar, had begun to beat him severely.

This he does, and Sue, using the skills learnt growing up in the Borough, escapes from the asylum and travels with Charles to London, with the intention of returning to Mrs Sucksby and her home in Lant Street.

After days of watching the activity of her old home from a nearby boarding house, Sue sends Charles with a letter explaining all to Mrs Sucksby, still believing that it was Maud and Gentleman alone who deceived her.

Sue remains unaware of her true parentage until she finds the will of Marianne Lilly tucked in the folds of Mrs Sucksby's gown.

It is further revealed that Maud is now writing erotic fiction to sustain herself financially, publishing her stories in The Pearl, a pornographic magazine run by one of her uncle's friends in London, William Lazenby.

In Fingersmith, Waters uses her depiction of lesbian love between Maud and Sue to challenge a variety of hetero-patriarchal norms, and respond to different feminist arguments about pornography.

[4] Outside of discussions about sexuality, the struggles that Maud and Sue both face as women in Victorian society, and their often exploitative relationships with men are also of interest to feminist critics.

Its cast included Sally Hawkins as Susan Trinder, Elaine Cassidy as Maud Lilly, Imelda Staunton as Mrs Sucksby, and Rupert Evans as Gentleman.

It starred Erica Sullivan as Maud, Sara Bruner as Sue, Elijah Alexander as Gentleman and Peter Frechette as Chris Lilly.