Those wild Wyndhams: the sisters at the heart of power

Description

Winner of the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2014 A rich historical biography of 'those wild Wyndhams' three cultured aristocratic sisters born into great privilege in late Victorian Britain. Mary, Madeline and Pamela the three Wyndham sisters were painted by John Singer Sargent in 1899. For The Times it was, quite simply, 'the greatest picture of modern times'. But these beautiful, fin de siecle gentlewomen came to epitomize a vanished world. The languor of their pose reflects the leisured, gilded, existence of the late Victorian aristocracy that was to be dealt a deathblow by the First World War. Yet the lives of these three Wyndham sisters were far more turbulent than their air of calm suggests. Brought up in artistic circles, their childhood was liberal and romantic. Their parents were intimate friends with the Pre-Raphaelites and the girls grew to become leaders of the aesthetic movement. Bowing to convention, they made excellent marriages but found emotional...