Circle of Sisters

For synopses and reviews of Judith's books, please click on the appropriate cover.

'A CIRCLE OF SISTERS'
Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin

Synopsis:

They were four women of little fortune. In early Victorian England, what opportunities were there for the daughters of a poor Methodist minister? The answer, as this outstanding first book demonstrates, is that there were many.

The Macdonald sisters - Louisa, Alice, Georgiana and Agnes - started life precariously stationed in the teeming ranks of the lower middle class. They were denied the advantages of a traditional education, or the expectation of social advancement. Yet, as wives and mothers, they were to connect a famous painter and a baronet, a prime minister and a poet. Georgiana and Agnes married, respectively, Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter; Louisa gave birth to Stanley Baldwin, whilst Alice was the mother of Rudyard Kipling. They were the hidden threads that tied these men together.

A Circle of Sisters brings to life four women who lived in an exceptional and privileged moment in history. Their journey, in a single generation, from provincial obscurity to metropolitan and imperial grandeur, symbolised the energy and vitality of nineteenth-century Britain. This was a society open to talent and teeming with possibility, where four lowly born sisters could rise to become the intimates of politicians, princes and viceroys.

Offering a rare glimpse of daily life in the nineteenth century – of how people lived and died, of how houses were run and children were raised – Judith Flanders prises open the secrets of a Victorian family. From their homes in India, America, London and the English countryside, the Macdonald sisters formed a network that – as their husbands and children triumphed and faltered, and the dramas of the outside world unfolded – uniquely endured. Judith Flanders tells their remarkable story with wit, authority and flair.

This book can be bought online at Amazon

Reviews:

'A Circle of Sisters': Eminent Victorians

Photos courtesy Helen Macdonald/National Portrait Gallery/From "Circle of Sisters"

From left: Alice Macdonald Kipling (mother of Rudyard) at 53, 1890; Georgiana Macdonald Burne-Jones, wife of the artist, in 1900 at the age of 60; Louisa Macdonald Baldwin, several years before her death in 1925 at 79 (she was Stanley Baldwin's mother); Agnes Macdonald Poynter in her 50's, sometime in the 1890's (her husband was director of the National Gallery).

By Amanda Foreman Published May 8, 2005 in The New York Times.

GEORGIANA, Agnes, Alice and Louisa Macdonald were four Victorian sisters from the wrong side of the class divide. Their father was a Methodist minister, their mother the daughter of a wholesale grocer ....... read more

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