A circle of sisters

the long version

"The Macdonald sisters - Alice, Georgiana, Agnes and Louisa - started life precariously stationed in the teeming ranks of the lower-middle class. They were denied the advantage of a traditional education, or the expectation of social advancement. Yet, as wives and mothers, they were to connect a famous painter, a president of the Royal Academy, a prime minister and a poet. Georgiana and Agnes married, respectively, Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter; Louisa gave birth to Stanley Baldwin, whilst Alice was the mother of Rudyard Kipling." "A Circle of Sisters brings to life four women who lived at an exceptional and privileged moment in history. Their journey, in a single generation, from provincial obscurity to metropolitan and imperial grandeur symbolized the energy and vitality of nineteenth-century Britain. This was a society open to talent and abundant with possibility, where four lowly born sisters could rise to become the intimates of politicians, princes and viceroys."--BOOK JACKET.