Seven portraits. Seven artists. Seven girls and women reading. A young orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena, and an artist's servant girl in 17th-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles. A young woman reading in a Shoreditch bar catches the eye of a young man who takes her picture, and a Victorian medium holds a book that she barely acknowledges while she waits for the exposure. Each chapter of this richly textured debut takes us into a perfectly imagined tale of how each portrait came to be, and as the connections accumulate, the narrative leads us into the present and beyond - an inspired celebration of women reading and the artists who have caught them in the act.
- ISBN10 1844086860
- ISBN13 9781844086863
- Publish Date 5 May 2011
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Imprint Virago Press Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 352
- Language English