Circle of Sisters is a new collective biography of the four Macdonald sisters, two of whom married the famous painters Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter, while the other two married Lockwood Kipling and Alfred Baldwin and produced between them a poet laureate and a prime minister. The daughters of a Methodist preacher, the four sisters led diverse and cosmopolitan lifestyles by Victorian standards, even if they remained throughout the subordinate siblings and partners of their menfolk. The story of the Macdonald family has been told before--notably in Ina Taylor's Victorian Sisters (1987--and although Flanders' account is better written, with more colour and detail, and with a finer appreciation of both the Macdonald forebears and the upbringing of the four girls, the book does not really live up to its billing. The author promises a book about private women, domestic life and the rhythms of family, subjects on which some of the best Victorian historians around have been working for a generation--for example, Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall in their influential Family Fortunes (1986). But we do not really get this. Circle of Sisters becomes too easily a conventional account of famous fathers and sons (Rudyard Kipling gets more space than Alice his mother). It is readable and undemanding biography, but hardly amounts to challenging history. We simply never learn enough about what made the sisters tick as daughters, wives or mothers. --Miles Taylor

2002-07-20 A Circle of Sisters

I was compelled from the start: a lower middle-class Methodist family 4 of whose daughters were protagonists in the lives of 4 influential and eminent Victorian men. This book skillfully sets up and contextualises the atmosphere of a mid 19th century England, in which women were defined by their roles as daughters, wives and mothers, and whose lives were effectively over once childbearing was complete.

The first half of the book elegantly opens up the world of the sisters, giving us both insight into their perceptions of their lives and the perceptions that society maintained about the lives of women.

As the book progresses a transition occurs - the lives of the sisters play second fiddle to those of their husbands and sons, as fascination about the men's lives become overpowering in their detail. The book, inadvertently, is an illustration of the invisibility of the Victorian woman who has fulfilled her function of bringing her men to the fore.

By two thirds of the way into the book the sisters are mentioned only in passing. There is no longer any sense of depth in their perceptions of those exerting influence around them, and little discourse of their attitudes and behaviours in relation to the way that Victorian values and mores were changing throughout the century. This despite the fact that each sister produced prolific correspondence, and 3 of whom were published authors.

There is strong evidence of the thorough research and work that the author has undertaken, and it is a shame that the sisters fade out of the book rather. Although they may have faded in the minds of those around them, the very fact that we now have a book dedicated to them suggests that they deserve a well rounded finish.

The 4 star rating reflects my unfulfilled expectations of the book. However, it deserves 5 stars for the author's writing skills, her ability to bring together intelligibly the strands of so many complex characters, her ability to hold an audience and her choice of subject. I look forward to her next publication.