When her mother Celia Paget died, Ariane Bankes inherited a battered trunk stuffed with letters and diaries belonging to Celia and her twin Mamaine. This correspondence charted the remarkable lives of the Paget sisters and their friends and lovers, including Arthur Koestler, Albert Camus, Sartre and de Beauvoir, and George Orwell.
Out of this rich archive, The Quality of Love weaves the story of these captivating and unusually beautiful identical twins who overcame a meagre education to take 1930s London society by storm and move among Europe’s foremost intellectuals during the twentieth century’s most dramatic decades. Above all, it is a sparkling portrait of the deep connection between two spirited sisters.
Ariane Bankes had a long career in publishing, including at John Murray and V&A Publishing, before becoming a writer, critic and curator. Her writing has appeared in the Spectator, TLS, Financial Times, Country Life and Slightly Foxed. She is Honorary President of Koestler Arts, and runs the Hatchards & Biographers’ Club First Biography Prize and the Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize.
My thoughts: I found this book, a biography of the author’s mother and aunt, utterly captivating. They lived through some of the most tumultuous years of the twentieth century, loved and were loved by some of the most extraordinary characters and lived an incredible life.
The Paget twins were beautiful, clever (but not exactly educated – school wasn’t really a priority) and well connected. They were feted by society magazines and fashion pages alike.
They had many long and complicated love affairs and counted people like George Orwell (who proposed to Celia) and Albert Camus (who had a long affair with Mamaine) among their closest friends and admirers. At times it reads a little like a Who’s Who of the mid twentieth century, which I found delightful, seeing as so many of the writers and figures are ones I’m interested in.
Orphaned young, they had a strange childhood, and despite being very bright, little formal education – something I don’t think you’d be able to do now. They were presented at court (twice!) and lived the sort of life that doesn’t sound entirely real, moving around Europe, lunching with the literary elite of London, Paris and beyond.
But they both suffered terrible health problems – related to chronic asthma and possibly as a result of the trauma of their parents’ deaths. In and out of hospitals and sanatoriums in places like Switzerland, for the air. It’s amazing they managed to fit so much living in. Mamaine sadly died quite young, but Celia went on to marry and have two children – the author and her brother, settling into domesticity after all her adventures.
Using her mother’s archive of letters, photos and other documents, as well as the stories she was told growing up, Ariane Bankes has created a beautiful snapshot of a period of time lost to us now but also a love letter to the bond between two extraordinary sisters. It’s really moving and tender at times, as the letters travel back and forth between sisters separated by geography, love affairs and health worries.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
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