This book surprised me in the best way. Most of the people in "A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers" by Michael Holroyd are not very familiar to me. While reading this biographical book I found the people fascinating and began to care about them.
In the hills above the small Italian town of Ravello is the Villa Cimbrone which pulls them all together, including the author and his wife, Margaret Drabble.
Here is the quote for Book Beginnings:
"On 24 February 1905 Rodin dines in London with a new benefactor Ernest Beckett (shortly to emerge, like a butterfly from its chrysalis, as the second Lord Grimthorpe). page 8
I am linking to Book Beginnings
Some of the people Holroyd writes about: Violet Trefusis (author and lover of Vita Sackville-West). Alice Keppel, mother of Violet and mistress to Ernest Beckett, the second Lord Grimthorpe and famously mistress to the Prince of Wales. Vita Sackville-West and her strong marriage to Harold Nicolson yet she had a passionate lesbian affair with Violet. Eve Fairfax, muse to Auguste Rodin. There are many interesting stories here.
Meanwhile the romantic Villa Cimbrone is a character in the lives of these people.
Here is a link to Friday 56
"The focus of Ernest's life had now moved to the Villa Cimbrone. It was a vision: a magic place to which, he believed, he would always return. For what he sought on his travels, what answered his dreams, he would bring back to Cimbrone, hoping to make it the centre of his life." p.64 (not page 56, I know!).
