First published 2018
On a foggy January morning in 1901, Ida Nettleship walks into St Pancras Registry Office to marry Augustus John, the magnetic art student who will become one of Britain's most celebrated painters. Her parents wanted a conventional match for their eldest daughter, but Ida chose love over respectability. Her letters to friends, family, and Augustus reveal a woman of fierce intelligence and wit navigating an increasingly unconventional marriage. When Augustus falls for another woman, Dorelia, Ida faces an impossible choice. Instead of leaving, she finds the courage to accept this three-way arrangement, sharing domesticity and pregnancies with her husband's lover. Through five pregnancies and mounting social scandal, Ida writes with startling candor about betrayal, compromise, and unexpected happiness. Her correspondence captures the daily reality of a woman determined to live on her own terms, even as self-doubt and despair threaten to overwhelm her. These letters bring to life a brilliant woman whose voice was silenced too soon by death at thirty.
Genres: art, historical-fiction, 20th-century, british-literature, biographical-fiction, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, love-triangle
Setting: Britain, St Pancras Registry Office
Period: 1901
352 pages · Paperback · Bloomsbury Publishing PLC