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This book tells of how Nathaniel Sparks RE escaped from an impoverished and harsh childhood in Bristol by winning a scholarship to the RCA1. He left Bristol with Malcolm Osborne, future PRE2 becoming himself a fellow in 1911. Whistler chose him to pull his Venice set, a task he repeated thirty years later for Miss Rosalind Birnie-Philips, Whistler's executrix. At the same time he pulled prints from unknown plates dating from Whistler's last journey abroad. In 1956 it was Whistler's stepson, Edward Godwin, who designed Nathaniel's tombstone. It also tells of his cousin, Thomas Hardy and his first catatonic years, the family's smuggling history, the devastating effect of Jemima Hardy's brain fever and the family renouncing parenthood. It relates how Thomas Hardy's six year old sister Kate became the virtual daughter of the famous author and his elder sister, Mary, and the dire consequences that ensued. |