Molly Peacock’s Paper Garden is ‘about’ Mary Delaney. Or is it?
18th century London: at 8, she watched Handel play her spinet. At 17, Lord Baltimore nearly proposed. At 40, she married Jonathan Swift’s friend. 25 years later, he died, and she fell into depression.
A falling, scarlet geranium petal caught her interest.
At 72, she seized scissors and paper. A new art form was born.
George III stopped for tea, to view her botanical paper cut-outs.
But it’s not a book ‘about’ a late-flowering artist.
It’s about this:
Art gives us hope to bear life.
What’s your book about?