Drawing on previously unpublished archival materials, this study spans three generations of the Lushington family. It investigates their personal histories through the themes of social, artistic, and cultural history. The author analyzes the Lushington family's relationships with well-known figures like Lady Byron, Queen Caroline, and members of the Bloomsbury Group. Most importantly, this study examines Lushington family members' roles within larger trends, including abolitionism, the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and Positivism.
David Taylor obtained his PhD at the University of Roehampton.
Part I: Stephen Chapter 1: "The L's are a good race" Chapter 2: Formative Years Chapter 3: The "Mourning Bride" Chapter 4: The Grieving Widower Chapter 5: A Social Conscience Part II: Vernon Chapter 6: A Child of Reform Chapter 7: "My Tropic Season" Chapter 8: A Disciple of Maurice Chapter 9: A Hearer of Carlyle Chapter 10: Comte: "A light in a dark world" Chapter 11: Art For Art's Sake? Chapter 12: Pre-Raphaelite Portraits Chapter 13: Portrait of a Marriage Chapter 14: "My Life for Others" Chapter 15: A Legacy Part III: Kitty Chapter 16: A Charmed Childhood Chapter 17: The Home Quartette. Chapter 18: Towards the Lighthouse: A Broken Engagement Chapter 19: The Lighthouse and Beyond: Marriage Chapter 20: Mrs Dalloway Part IV: Epilogue Chapter 21: The Last of the Lushingtons
At the core of this fascinating study are the riches of the Lushington archives. David Taylor has not only used this resource to the fullest, but has also followed the threads outwards into the life of the nation. He paints a vivid and engaging picture of a cultivated, well-connected, and affluent professional family of individuals who took full and creative part in all that they encountered. -- Gillian Sutherland, Newnham College Without any need for fame, the Lushingtons knew and influenced an astonishing number of public figures and events throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. This is a fascinating book about a family with their fingers in every pie. -- Julian Fellowes, creator of "Downton Abbey" As important members of the circles around Byron and the Romantics in the early nineteenth century, Pre-Raphaelite writers and artists in the Victorian period, and Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury world in the modernist age, several generations of the Lushington family played central roles in the story of British literature and culture. David Taylor charts this lost history and illuminates it with wit, scholarly intelligence, and a dedicated researcher's passion. -- Margaret D. Stetz, University of Delaware
