I appreciated the look into this family I previously hadn't studied. It is good to look beyond popular families like the Tudors in order to gain more insight into our history. The writing was a tad dry but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

This was an informative read. I did not know much the Wyndham Sisters. However, they led very interesting lives. The only thing I did not like about this book was that it was a bit dry. It also jumped from sister to sister which made it a bit confusing. However, I highly recommend this for those interested in the aristocracy.

Taking as the point of departure Sargent's group portrait of the Wyndham sisters--Mary, Madeline and Pamela--Renton constructs a family biography that encapsulates the last Victorian generation as it indulged and then foundered on the calamity of the First World War. Socially prominent as bohemians and aesthetes, they married into the old aristocracy, into politics (Mary m. Arthur Balfour), and into industrial money, and wafted through the imperial splendor of Cairo, country house weekends and London court season. The shock of the war, and the decimation of their heirs (and the postwar economy) are illustrated in the drastic circumspection of their world and the speed with which their brand of wild and shocking became passe.

Mary, Madeline, and Pamela Wyndham, born into immense wealth, were the A-listers of their day, the Kardashians of Victorian England. This biography delves deep into correspondence, news articles, every scrap of gossip or fact ever saved about the three Wyndham sisters and their privileged lives, their strategic marriages, their affairs and scandals. Descriptions of life at Clouds, their family estate, are really something. At about 350 pages, this book may cause readers to bog down a little--I did--really, how much do we need to know or care about? As a study of the day, though, this book is a masterpiece.

When reading this book, you can tell that the author did her research, as she not only wrote about the Wyndham sisters, but of the impact political events had on this family. I found the era that they lived in to be interesting.

The exquisite John Singer Sergeant painting selected for this book's cover is in itself a perfect overview of this biography of the three Wyndham sisters: privileged, pampered, and well-positioned.

I enjoy learning about Victorian society and politics and Claudia Renton's book was a very deep dive in to the social and political history of this family. I was particularly interested in the book's early chapters that included lots of bits and pieces about their friendship with members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the avant garden interior design of their family home with all its William Morris furnishings.

The author clearly did her homework and the book was very well researched and documented and, perhaps that led me to become less interested in the family as the years (and chapters) progressed. The writing was lucid, but not luminous, and as I approached the end of the book I felt that I knew more than enough about this family. Maybe more than I needed to know.