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Overview
From the bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring comes a stirring eighteenth-century coming-of- age taleTracy Chevalier, author of the international bestseller Girl With a Pearl Earring, returns with another brilliantly rendered historical tale set in the waning days of eighteenth-century London. Poet, artist, and printer William Blake works in obscurity as England is rocked by the shock waves of the French Revolution. Next door, the Kellaway family has just moved in, and country boy Jem Kellaway strikes up a tentative friendship with street?savvy Maggie Butterfield. As their stories intertwine with Blake?s, the two children navigate the confusing and exhilarating path to adolescence, and inspire the poet to create the work that enshrined his genius.
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring comes a stirring eighteenth-century coming-of- age tale
Tracy Chevalier, author of the international bestseller Girl With a Pearl Earring, returns with another brilliantly rendered historical tale set in the waning days of eighteenth-century London. Poet, artist, and printer William Blake works in obscurity as England is rocked by the shock waves of the French Revolution. Next door, the Kellaway family has just moved in, and country boy Jem Kellaway strikes up a tentative friendship with street—savvy Maggie Butterfield. As their stories intertwine with Blake's, the two children navigate the confusing and exhilarating path to adolescence, and inspire the poet to create the work that enshrined his genius.
The Boston Globe
Chevalier's writing is most lively and supple when depicting adolescent sexuality. Indeed, this novel could comfortably be classified as juvenile fiction a very honorable genre. . . . If she succeeds in acquainting a new generation with the rapturous work of William Blake on the eve of the 250th anniversary of his birth, she can take pride in her accomplishment.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The author of Girl with a Pearl Earring returns with another engrossing, realistic historical novel, this one set in the final decade of the 18th century. Burning Bright follows Thomas Kellaway and his family as they migrate from rural Dorset to London, where Thomas has found work as a circus carpenter and builder. The novel foregrounds the experiences of Kellaway's son Jem and his pretty sister Maisie as they adjust with varying degrees of success to urban life and the vicissitudes of adulthood. As in her previous novels, Chevalier mixes historical characters and her own creations; among the real people vividly portrayed here are circus pioneer Philip Astley and radical poet/engraver William Blake.Chicago Sun-Times
A novel teeming with the complexities of life . . . Chevalier has a fine eye for detail and delightfully captures the sights, smells, and sounds of an earlier time.The Times (London)
A visual delight.The Boston Globe
Chevalier's writing is most lively and supple when depicting adolescent sexuality. Indeed, this novel could comfortably be classified as juvenile fiction—a very honorable genre. . . . If she succeeds in acquainting a new generation with the rapturous work of William Blake on the eve of the 250th anniversary of his birth, she can take pride in her accomplishment.Elle
Chevalier's signature talent lies in bringing alive the ordinary day-to-dayness of the past . . . lovingly evoked.Entertainment Weekly
Chevalier masterfully evokes a sense of working class life . . . [in] French Revolution– era London.Time Out London
A wonderfully vivid portrait of eighteenth-century London.Nicholas Delbanco
If you believe in urchins happily united in the country dusk and reciting Blake to each other, then this book will persuade. Chevalier's villains are deep-dyed villains, her good people blindingly good; they go from innocence to experience with scarcely a hitch in their stride.— The Washington Post