As heard on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week
There is always in our minds the hope that we may find again
those golden unhastening days and wake up and dream'
In this beautifully nostalgic memoir, eminent author Angela
Thirkell recalls in rich detail the three houses in which she grew
up. Focusing first on The Grange', where her grandfather, the
celebrated painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones, set the cultivated tone,
Thirkell also reminisces about her parents' home in Kensington
Square and the Burne-Jones' seaside retreat, where Angela's cousin,
Rudyard Kipling, lived across the green.
A tale of forbidden explorations, Punch and Judy shows, and
adventures in the garden, Three Houses is beautifully
evocative of the innocent quality of childhood. From the busy
literary centre of London to the English coast, this stunning memoir
is both reminiscent of the golden days of youth and an interesting
vision of a writer and the early influences that informed her later work.
