Showing results by narrator "Claudia Renton" in All Categories

They were confidantes to British prime ministers, poets, writers, and artists, their lives entwined with the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day, from Oscar Wilde to Henry James. They were the lovers of great men - or men of great prominence... They lived in a world of luxurious excess, a world of splendor at 44 Belgrave Square and later at the even more vast Clouds, the exquisite Wiltshire house on 4,000 acres, the "house of the age", designed in 1876 by the visionary architect Philip Webb - the model for Henry James' The Spoils of Poynton.

Of all the characters in The Seeing Stone and At the Crossing-Places, it is Gatty the village girl -- steadfast, forthright, innocent, and wise -- who has won the most hearts. This is her story, written down at her behest by her childhood friend and hero, Arthur de Caldicot. Gatty's dream is to follow Arthur to Jerusalem -- though she has not even understood that Jerusalem is farther away than Ludlow, and across the sea.