The Daughter of Time is a 1951 detective novel by Josephine Tey, concerning a modern police officer's investigation into the alleged crimes of King Richard III of England.

[1] Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant (a character who also appears in five other novels by the same author) is feeling bored while confined to bed in hospital with a broken leg.

Grant spends weeks pondering historical information and documents with the help of Brent Carradine, a likable young American researcher working in the British Museum.

Using his detective's logic, he comes to the conclusion that the claim of Richard being a murderer is a fabrication of Tudor propaganda, as is the popular image of the King as a monstrous hunchback.

[3] Other alleged historical myths touched upon by the author are the commonly believed (but false) story that troops fired on the public at the 1910 Tonypandy Riot, the traditional depiction of the Boston Massacre, the martyrdom of Margaret Wilson and the life and death of Mary, Queen of Scots.

[citation needed] In this novel, as in her other works such as The Franchise Affair and Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey relies partially on physiognomy as a means of determining an initial assessment of a person's character.

However, this is just an initial 'gut feel', the original spark that makes Grant want to know more about (and thus ultimately research and investigate) the true character and background of Richard III rather than any of the other historical personae of whom his friend Marta Hallard has provided him with images (in order to alleviate his bed-ridden boredom).

Tey's pro-Richard arguments repeat some of those made in Clements Markham's 1906 book Richard III: his life & character, reviewed in the light of recent research.

Winston Churchill stated in his History of the English-Speaking Peoples[6] his belief in Richard's guilt of the murder of the princes, adding, "It will take many ingenious books to raise the issue to the dignity of a historical controversy", probably referring to Tey's novel, published seven years earlier.