burning bright by tracy chevalier

financial times 1 march 2008

Tracy Chevalier’s reputation was forged by the success of Girl with a Pearl Earring, and she continues to mine periods of social upheaval – this time it’s Georgian London, at the time of the French Revolution.

If he’s not busy reciting Paradise Lost, naked, to his wife, or talking to the ghost of his dead brother, William Blake can be found striding through the streets of Lambeth, wearing a bonnet rouge.

But it’s the friendship between two of his young neighbours, Jem and Maggie, that forms the core of the book. It’s an exhilarating ride, featuring a circus, a funeral, two pregnancies and a murder.

Burning Bright lacks the fire of Blake’s own work, but it is compelling enough to provide relief from “the mind-forged manacles” of city life.

This review originally appeared in the Financial Times