RelationsJonathan Cape, 2003 - 279 pages "In this remarkable book, Jane Miller writes about the experiences of being a daughter and a sister, of the intensities of family life and of the illuminations that come from the last days and death of parents. Relations offers a portrait of a record-keeping, middle-class kinship, reaching back into the past, which begins from her parents' long marriage, its mysteries and incompatibilities, their shared sense of themselves as artists - she as a painter, he as a pianist. It was a marriage marked by the dismay it met with from both their families. Writing about these things leads Miller to further explorations: her relations with her maternal grandfather, Redcliffe Salaman, scientist, historian, secular Jew, and his with his devoutly Jewish wife. Her father's family were Unitarian - Dissenters since the 17th century - and her great-grandfather, Collet Dobson Collet, was known for his role in the successful campaign to liberate the press from the 'taxes on knowledge' imposed by government and for his friendship with Karl Marx. Collet's daughter Clara was one of the first women civil servants, and an economist who was involved in the first stirrings of the Welfare State. Here are the t |
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Page 108
... Aunt Edith's mind had always sweetly wandered and that she had always found dressing a con- fusing affair , and that Uncle Harold had always sat smiling and nervous among his cricket and golf mementoes , with apparently nothing to do ...
... Aunt Edith's mind had always sweetly wandered and that she had always found dressing a con- fusing affair , and that Uncle Harold had always sat smiling and nervous among his cricket and golf mementoes , with apparently nothing to do ...
Page 151
... aunt and great- aunt ; or her busy , practical and finally disgruntled mother , or even Eliza , her paternal grandmother , the recipient of dozens of dourly wooing letters from the cousin she eventually married letters which Clara ...
... aunt and great- aunt ; or her busy , practical and finally disgruntled mother , or even Eliza , her paternal grandmother , the recipient of dozens of dourly wooing letters from the cousin she eventually married letters which Clara ...
Page 172
... Aunt and niece kept up an almost daily correspondence all their lives , about books and music and God and the iniquities of slavery and racism in America and of capital punishment every- where . Sophy was religious , differently so from ...
... Aunt and niece kept up an almost daily correspondence all their lives , about books and music and God and the iniquities of slavery and racism in America and of capital punishment every- where . Sophy was religious , differently so from ...
Contents
Portrait of an Artist | 1 |
The Potato Man | 26 |
Three Sisters | 59 |
Copyright | |
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