Stella Tillyard, author of Aristocrats, says that her intention was
to marry biography and history, and this she has most triumphantly
done. In her splendid book Tillyard records the personal histories
of four sisters, daughters of the Duke of Richmond. She tells the
tale - and, like a novel, this is truly a tale - of four devoted
sisters, Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, who all were at
the centre of important families and events from 1740-1832. One
shocked her parents by eloping with a none-too-scrupulous
politician; another married a Duke by whom she had 19 children
before having two more by their tutor; a third, the wife of an
immensely rich Irishman, went to live in a house with 46 servants;
the fourth, with whom George III had been much in love, married a
baronet and had an illegitimate child before she was divorced.
Though the Lennox sisters were the Duke of Richmond's daughters,
and great-granddaughters of Charles II, this in itself might not
merit this work of considerable scholarship, but as well as wealth,
titles and fine marriages they were inveterate and intelligent
writers of letters, and these form the basis for a remarkable
insight into a world that emerges as both relevant and
extraordinarily distant from the present. Politics, adultery,
gossip, arts and philosophy intertwine, but the broad sweep of
history is set off by the social history culled from innumerable
household accounts. Yet what becomes riveting is not even the
covering of so much political and social history in a fluent and
lively way, though that is fascinating enough, so much as the
poignant and intimate charting of what sisterhood meant to the
Lennox women. They thought of each other all the time and in
disaster wanted always to help each other and be together. Each
emerges distinct and unusual but it is the collective portrait of
their relationship, framed by often tumultuous events, which gives
this book its brilliance. (Kirkus UK)
A fascinating insight into 18th century aristocratic life through the lives of the four Lennox sisters, the great grandchildren of Charles II, whose extraordinary lives spanned the period 1740-1832. Passionate, witty and moving, the voices of the Lennox sisters reach us with immediacy and power, drawing the reader into their remarkable lives, and making this one of the most enthralling historical narratives to appear for many years.
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