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This enchanting essay, glowing with colour, unlocks the lives, passions and designs of two charismatic artists, Mariano Fortuny and William Morris
A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children's Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her 'inspiring contribution to life writing' and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.
Byatt's latest offering is a slender but deliciously rich
meditation on two artists who blurred the boundary between art and
craft
*Harper's Bazaar*
A shimmering book… All admirers of AS Byatt's writing are aware of
her profound intellectual awareness of the visual coexisting with
an almost childlike delight in the colours and tactilities of
everyday life... This is a small book but, in its enchanting way,
it brings together so many of the themes of Byatt's larger and more
obviously ambitious work. [...] Through concentrating on the
interlocking worlds of Morris and Fortuny she makes a great defence
of the values of art.
*Guardian*
Charming... A. S. Byatt outlines the lives and passions - both
intellectual and romantic - of two multitalented artist-designers
who have captured her imagination
*ELLE Décor*
Compact, beautifully illustrated... Byatt teases out connections
between [these two artists], using Fortuny to reimagine Morris and
vice versa... [Her] short but luminous book is a celebration of the
arts they practised
*The Sunday Times*
Filled with lovely images .... Byatt shows in her latest book, with
her characteristic literary panache, these two titans of decoration
and design had much in common, and the study of one brings into
better relief the work of the other
*Vogue*
A fascinating read. A.S. Byatt has limned mini-biographies of both
artists, drawing illuminating comparisons and contrasts between
them ... Not only a pleasure to peruse, it will send its readers to
libraries and museums to find out more about these two talented and
immensely energetic men ... This is a book to enjoy, to think
about, and to present to others as a gift
*The Washington Times*
Peacock and Vine is a very personal exploration of visual pleasure.
The book is, accordingly, small and precious, its pages waxy and
illustrations lush
*The Daily Telegraph*
A thoughtful exercise in parallel biography... by putting Morris
and Fortuny side by side, Byatt celebrates their differences as
much as their surprising affinities
*Literary Review*
Beautifully produced little book…heavy with sensory perceptions.
She mixes biographical details with accounts of their houses and
luscious descriptions of the beautiful things that they made.
*The Times*
Her fictions swarm with physical objects of intense emotional
potency and with characters whose lives they touch in strange and
unexpected ways… In this brilliant and tenderly observant little
book, with its elegant Gill typeface and handsome colour
illustrations, she [Byatt] celebrates the fruits of making and
looking.
*New Statesman*
[A] faceted gem of a book… An ingenious comparison.
*Nature*
A lavishly illustrated blend of travelogue and art history.
*Lady*
Persuasively argued ... Abundant illustrations ... Byatt is an
unabashed enthusiast of both her subjects, and her passion for
their work enlivens every sentence of her text
*Publishers Weekly*
The book looks ravishing
*Bookseller*
[An] elegant new book.
*The Economist*
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