10% off all books and free delivery over £40
Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.

Arresting Beauty

"Based on real people, this reels with romance, period atmosphere, and the spirit of a young woman who teeters between her working-class roots and bohemian high society in Victorian England."

View All Editions (2)

The selected edition of this book is not available to buy right now.
Add To Wishlist
Write A Review Read An Extract

LoveReading Says

LoveReading Says

Through the lives of two extraordinary women, and an engaging first-person narrative, Heather Cooper’s Arresting Beauty reveals how some boundaries of class and gender could not be crossed in Victorian England. Inspired by the real-life experiences of celebrated Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and the young girl she took into her Bohemian household, the author handles her subjects with deft diligence and warmth. 

As a ten-year-old, Mary was plucked “from the gutters of Putney and installed in a real house, a grand one” by Julia Margaret Cameron, an esteemed photographer. In Mary’s view, “I was a project, an enthusiasm, one among so many.” In Julia’s, “I must have this child! Yes, yes; look at her, those eyes!” 

Soon after Mary becomes part of Julia’s bohemian household as a maid, they move to the Isle of Wight, where Julia’s friend Alfred Tennyson, a close neighbour, observes that Mary is an “intelligent girl.” In time, after being educated alongside Julia’s own sons, spirited Mary becomes her mistress’s muse, model and assistant while battling class constraints of the age, and experiencing intense romance.

With a rich cast of characters, top-notch dialogue and vivid sense of its protagonist’s conflicts and desires, Arresting Beauty is a fine example of biographical fiction.

Joanne Owen

Find This Book In

Primary Genre Historical Fiction
Other Genres:

About

Author

You Might Also Like...

Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen

Hardback

In Stock

£11.69 £12.99

This Side of Paradise

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Paperback

In Stock

£8.09 £8.99

Tales of the Jazz Age

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Paperback

In Stock

£8.09 £8.99

Tender Is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Paperback

In Stock

£8.99 £9.99

Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

Diana Gabaldon

Paperback

In Stock

£9.89 £10.99

Theatre of Marvels

Lianne Dillsworth

Paperback

In Stock

£8.99 £9.99