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A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin - Review
Contemporary Review, Oct, 2001
A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin. Judith Flanders. Viking. [pound]17.99. 392 pages. ISBN 0-670-88673-4. The four daughters of the Rev George Macdonald have fascinated two previous biographers because two of the women married men who became famous -- Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter and two became mothers of famous men -- Stanley Baldwin and Rudyard Kipling.
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What fascinated previous generations was not that four sisters could achieve all this -- the same could be said for several titled families -- but that four sisters from a Wesleyan Methodist, i.e. lower-middle to middle class, Nonconformist and provincial, background could do this. The author is good at discussing the social context but falls down when discussing the world of Victorian religion. To say that the Methodist Connexion was 'officially still part of the Established Church' is not only incorrect but skews the whole picture. Wesleyans occupied a peculiar position: socially their grow ing suburban base yearned for social acceptance and politically they felt uncomfortable when placed too near the older, 'radical' dissenters let alone their fellow working-class Methodists of different 'connexions'. Yet legally they were nonconformists. It is precisely because Methodists were not part of the classes which usually produced Presidents of the R.A. and famous painters that the four women's stories have always appealed. Where the author excels is in her descriptions of home life and of the relationships that extended Victorian families produced and she retains a balanced view. (J.M.)
COPYRIGHT 2001 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
