A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin [Hardcover]

Judith Flanders (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2005

THE MACDONALD SISTERS--Alice, Georgiana, Agnes, and Louisa--started life in the teeming ranks of the lower-middle classes, denied the advantages of education and the expectation of social advancement. Yet as wives and mothers they would connect a famous painter, a president of the Royal Academy, a prime minister, and the uncrowned poet laureate of the Empire. Georgiana and Alice married, respectively, the pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones and the arts administrator Edward Poynter; Louisa gave birth to future prime minister Stanley Baldwin, and Alice was mother to Rudyard Kipling. "A Circle of Sisters brings to life four women living at a privileged moment in history. Their progress from obscurity to imperial grandeur indicates the vitality of nineteenth-century Britain: a society abundant with possibility. From their homes in India, America, and England, the sisters formed a network that, through the triumphs and tragedies of their families and the Empire, uniquely endured.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although born to a humble Methodist minister, the clever and artistically inclined Macdonald sisters married "up," into the Victorian bourgeoisie. Georgiana married the rising pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, whose affair with Greek sculptress Mary Zambaco would later test Georgiana's love for him. The family beauty, Agnes, also married an artist, the president of the Royal Academy Edward Poynter. Alice, known for her wit and flirtatiousness, married John Lockwood Kipling, the head of an art school in Bombay; Rudyard Kipling was their son. Louisa suffered from a mysterious debilitating illness, yet managed to write and publish several novels and married the industrialist Alfred Baldwin. Her son, Stanley Baldwin, was a three-time prime minister of Britain. Did the sisters "make" their husbands and their sons? Flanders (Inside the Victorian Home) ponders this question as she teases out, with novelistic insights, the domestic dramas, career paths and affinities of the sisters and their talented families. With her characteristic flair for absorbing detail and analysis, Flanders also explores more general aspects of Victorian social history: from the gender values underlying attitudes toward nervous illness to philosophies of child-rearing (particularly pertinent when discussing Rudyard Kipling's notoriously unhappy childhood). Shortlisted in England for the Guardian First Book Award, this is a treat for lovers of feminist Victorian history. 16 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

They were not to the manor born; blue blood did not flow in their veins, yet sisters Alice, Agnes, Georgiana, and Louisa MacDonald grew up to become the wives and mothers of some of Victorian England's most celebrated and influential men. Georgie would marry renowned pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones; Agnes, Edward Poynter, administrator of the Royal Academy of Art and the National and Tate galleries. Louisa's son, Stanley Baldwin, would be a three-term prime minister, and Alice Kipling's son, Rudyard, would give the world classic literature. Although the MacDonald women were not without intellect and talent, theirs would be a reflected glory, and Flanders ponders how each affected her husband's or son's achievements and what effect their work had, in turn, upon the women. Offering perceptive commentary on the prescribed role of women in Victorian society to be mere helpmeets, Flanders' attentive, scholarly accuracy is enhanced by piquant observations that demonstrate both her professional talent and personal take on the lives of these remarkable, but unremarked upon, women. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First edition (March 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393052109
• ISBN-13: 978-0393052107
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #825,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book for a somewhat specialized audience, May 10, 2006

By 

Elizabeth A. Root (Laurel, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin (Hardcover)

This isn't something that I would recommend to every reader. The title sounds a lot more warm and fuzzy than the sisters were. If you are expecting a heart-warming tale of the days when all families were close and unfailingly took care of one another, this isn't it. One recommendation I would make is to look up the Rudyard Kipling, Stanley Baldwin, Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter in an encyclopedia, the Dictionary of National Biography or on the internet if they are not familiar. I say this not by way of faulting the book, there are too many characters to give each a full treatment, but it helps to have some idea of who these people were.

The book focuses on the daughters of a Methodist minister. Four either married men who became famous or had sons who became famous. Unfortunately, these are generally not terribly charming personalities, so it is no great delight getting to know them unless one is interested in the period or these particular people. But for those with a special interest, I think it will probably be quite interesting. There were also two brothers, one who was rather unsuccessful and one who was quite successful as a Methodist clergyman, but they take a back seat to their sisters both in the book and in the sisters' lives.

The one thing that I would have liked to have seen developed better is successful relations within the extended family. Georgiana Burne-Jones was very close to her nephew Rudyard, but I'm not really certain why. This may be a problem with a lack of sources on this particular point - Flanders can infer from guest books which relatives saw little of each other but more positive information would be necessary for this.

The MacDonald sisters: Alice, Georgiana, Agnes, Louisa and Edith, came from a modest, barely middle-class background. It is quite interesting that three of them married men from equally undistinguished roots, one a man who was perhaps upper middle-class. Despite these seemingly unpromising beginnings, two of the initally undistinguished husbands, Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter (married to Georgiana and Agnes, respectively) became very successful and famous in the field of art. The third husband, Lockwood Kipling, married to Alice, was successful in his field, and their son, Rudyard, would become an international literary success and quite wealthy. The fourth, husband, Alfred Baldwin, married to Louisa, was a model as an industrialist, noted for public service, who went into politics. Their son, Stanley Baldwin, was three time Prime Minister. Many of the less famous members of the family pursued successful careers as writiers, sometimes quite well known in their time. A few were failures as life: either suffering psychological problems, perhaps due to a frustration of their creative potential, or too comfortable as the children of the famous. Judith Flanders attempts to discover how nurture, i.e., being related to the MacDonalds, may have lead to the surprising achievements. I don't think that she really succeeds, not that I believe that we necessarily can ferret out these influences, but she does draw a probing picture of an interesting family. She considers not only the facts, but draws reasonable inferences about the human beings they refer to. She is quite clear about when she is speculating.

Flanders has done an enormous amount of research. There are many notes, a 12-page "Select Bibliography" and an index. There are eight pages of plates, with 45-50 well-selected pictures of the extended family. I particularly want to commend how the notes and index were done. The notes have both the chapter number and chapter running title, making it much easier to match them with the notes in the text. The index has brief explanatory notes in parentheses after the names of less important characters, e.g. (niece of so-and-so), which is often all that is needed, as well as cross-reference to variant names.

Probably not for everybody, but a excellent work for its subjects.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The four MacDonald sisters, April 29, 2008

By 

LinAnne "Lin22" (Puget Sound) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin (Hardcover)

I read Ms. Flanders' previous work, "Inside the Victorian Home",(loved it) and therefore I was familiar with Ms. Flanders' writing style. Knowing the author's style helped me to enjoy CIRCLE OF SISTERS much more than if I had not first read Ms. Flanders previous book.

I guess what I'm eluding to is: Ms. Flander's "interesting" writing style. Her style is almost Edwardian,for lack of a better word. Her style can get rather dull in some parts of this book, but luckily, the various intertwining life-stories help the reader to pick up the pace.

If you want to read an intersting book about what life must have been like during the Victorian Era, and especially for four rather "unusual" sisters (ie: unusual for their time), then a reader may find this book quite fascinating, as I did.

The book starts off with a Geneology Tree showing where each sister, and how their respected mates and relatives, fit into the picture.

Then the book takes you back to grandfather MacDonald's life and how he and his wife rose to the challenges they encountered (eg: loneliness of a minister's wife, low pay, many moves).

Soon, the reader is taken to a description of each of the sisters. By the way, there were actually FIVE MacDonald sisters, but Edith, the youngest, never married and therefore she was only slightly talked about. The main plot actually evolves around the four older sisters,(Georgie, Agnes, Alice and Louisa) because these four "main" sisters ended-up marrying famous men (such as Rudyard Kipling's father) and had more exciting lives than poor Edith , who ended-up being the parents' caretaker and stayed home most of the time.

Each chapter of this book describes a "stage" in the sisters' lives (eg: meeting their mates, marriage, their children, infirmary, strange health issues, old age, death, etc.).

The author does a very nice job with even the slightest details of each sisters` life....Example, from what they wore and ate the day one sister met her future husband (eg: Alice was biting into an onion when first approached by John Lockwood Kipling in KIPLING PARK), to when another sister had to deal with infidelity (ie: Georgie's husband's affair).

The other interesting part of this book is that it describes, in detail, how each of the sisters' children felt and how each turned-out, in the long run! For instance, I think that readers will be quite surprised to learn, how Trix and Rudyard Kipling grew-up and how their personalities changed because of their environments and upbringing.

I don't want to say much more, because that might ruin the story, but I must say that after reading this book I knew more about the MacDonald sisters, the Victorian Era, and the sisters' relatives, than I had ever imagined.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the sister chronicles, April 28, 2009

By 

reader "reader" (new york) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin (Hardcover)

very well written, deeply researched, the author inserts her own judgements of the sisters' behavior as we follow the timeline. not only do we see them grow up and older, but their lives mirror english society in the 19th century and they fortell our own 'aristocrats' of talent and celebrity. i like some sisters more than others, and the rudyard kipling portion especially was fascinating.