Why read A Curious Friendship?

Book cover of A Curious Friendship: The Story of a Bluestocking and a Bright Young Thing

Book description

I loved A Curious Friendship. Anna Thomasson, in her first book, has brilliantly captured this strange coterie.' Sir Roy Strong

The winter of 1924: Edith Olivier, alone for the first time at the age of 51, thought her life had come to an end. For Rex Whistler, a 19-year-old art…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Curious Friendship as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Graham Rust

Author

The best story, most engrossing of all and set between the wars, is about the unlikely friendship that developed between the fifty-one-year-old spinster, Edith Olivier and the young artist Rex Whistler thirty years her junior.

Edith Olivier (a cousin of the actor Laurence Olivier) became devoted to Rex, as muse and most fervent supporter, thus transforming both of their lives.

Her home, the Daye House on the Wilton Estate, became a sanctuary for Whistler and the gaiety and fun of the period is perfectly evoked by the author, with a cast of friends and acquaintances that bring it to life…

From Graham's list on the artist and the art of living.