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gwyneira 's review for:
Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832
by Stella Tillyard
Aristocrats is a brilliant group biography of a family of noble sisters during the Hanoverian period in England. The Lennox sisters were great-granddaughters of Charles II (through his mistress Louise de Keroualle), daughters of the Duke of Richmond, and wives and mothers to politicians and peers, but also fascinating people in their own rights.
All their lives they wrote letters voluminously, to each other and to other family members, and it's these letters that Tillyard uses in her reconstruction of their lives and their world, quoting liberally so that we hear the sisters in their own words as often as possible. Tillyard's portrayal of Hanoverian England is wonderfully rich and engaging, from politics and society to the details of daily life, and her portraits of the sisters and their relationship are acutely realized.
Aristocrats is that rare and wonderful thing: a non-fiction book so engrossing that it's hard to put down.
All their lives they wrote letters voluminously, to each other and to other family members, and it's these letters that Tillyard uses in her reconstruction of their lives and their world, quoting liberally so that we hear the sisters in their own words as often as possible. Tillyard's portrayal of Hanoverian England is wonderfully rich and engaging, from politics and society to the details of daily life, and her portraits of the sisters and their relationship are acutely realized.
Aristocrats is that rare and wonderful thing: a non-fiction book so engrossing that it's hard to put down.