The Quality of Love

Twin Sisters at the Heart of the Century

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Pub Date May 02 2024 | Archive Date Apr 09 2024

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Description

A rich family archive reveals the incredible lives and loves of two sisters who captivated Europe’s intelligentsia

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When her mother Celia Paget died, Ariane Bankes inherited a battered trunk stuffed with letters and diaries belonging to Celia and her twin Mamaine. This correspondence charted the remarkable lives of the Paget sisters and their friends and lovers, including Arthur Koestler, Albert Camus, Sartre and de Beauvoir, and George Orwell. 

Out of this rich archive, The Quality of Love weaves the story of these captivating and unusually beautiful identical twins who overcame a meagre education to take 1930s London society by storm and move among Europe’s foremost intellectuals during the twentieth century’s most dramatic decades. Above all, it is a sparkling portrait of the deep connection between two spirited sisters.

A rich family archive reveals the incredible lives and loves of two sisters who captivated Europe’s intelligentsia

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When her mother Celia Paget died, Ariane Bankes inherited a battered trunk...


Advance Praise

‘Taking us from the high bohemia of 1930s London to the European intellectual scene of the 1940s and 1950s, Ariane Bankes weaves a story as spirited and alluring as the Paget sisters at its centre’ Lady Antonia Fraser

‘A sophisticated, cultured cast of writers and thinkers are convincingly woven together through the fascination of the Paget twins, who are the magnetic centre of the story. The Quality of Love conjures a treasure trove of characters who were at the heart of their age’ Virginia Nicholson, author of Among the Bohemians

‘Ariane Bankes has painted a wonderfully rich and lovingly nuanced portrait of her mother and aunt, devoted twins, whose lives and loves traversed the intellectual currents and crises of mid twentieth-century Europe’ Rupert Christiansen

‘A fascinating slice of social history seen through the lives of two dynamic, glamorous sisters. The Quality of Love also provides intriguing revelations about some of the great thinkers of the mid-twentieth century – George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, and Albert Camus – who were dazzled by the Paget twins. Hugely enjoyable’ Julia Parry, author of The Shadowy Third

The Quality of Love illuminates an intoxicating, almost lost world as never before, but its emotional heartbeat lies in the indissoluble trajectory of sibling love running through the lives of the magnetic Paget twins’ Juliet Nicolson, journalist and author of A House Full of Daughters

‘Taking us from the high bohemia of 1930s London to the European intellectual scene of the 1940s and 1950s, Ariane Bankes weaves a story as spirited and alluring as the Paget sisters at its centre’ ...


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9780715654989
PRICE £18.99 (GBP)
PAGES 288

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Average rating from 7 members


Featured Reviews

This was an interesting look at a time that I did not know a ton about at a personal level I feel like I got to know both of the women quite well in the book and the rest of the family. I really felt like reading a diary, or a memoir times. It was engaging and lively. I appreciate the work that was put into the book. It really was entertaining and not dry at all. I think twins are always interesting so that was a bonus to this book. I really recommended for a personal look at a interesting time.

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