Burning Bright
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Product Description
Review
'A subtle clarity of style, quirky but seldom over-drawn characters, engaging touches of domestic detail and a splendidly vital recreation of Georgian London'
Sunday Times
'Vivid, romantic and pacey'
Daily Mail
'Those who admired Chevalier's atmospheric evocation of 17th-century Delft will find much to enjoy in her vivid reconstruction of late 18th-century London'
Guardian
'Burning Bright is an ambitious, impressively-researched novel…You can almost smell the smoke and mildewed clothes, see the gaunt, pock-marked faces of people struggling to survive and sense Jem's wonder as he gazes across the murky Thames to a perplexing world'
Daily Express
Product Description
Flames and funerals, circus feats and seduction, neighbours and nakedness: Tracy Chevalier's Burning Bright sparkles with historical drama.
London 1792. The Kellaways move from familiar rural Dorset to the tumult of a cramped, unforgiving city. They are leaving behind a terrible loss, a blow that only a completely new life may soften.
Against the backdrop of a city jittery over the increasingly bloody French Revolution, a surprising bond forms between Jem, the youngest Kellaway boy, and streetwise Londoner Maggie Butterfield. Their friendship takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their neighbour, the printer, poet and radical, William Blake. He is a guiding spirit as Jem and Maggie navigate the unpredictable, exhilarating passage from innocence to experience. Their journey inspires one of Blake's most entrancing works.
Georgian London is recreated as vividly in Burning Bright as 17th-century Delft was in Tracy Chevalier's bestselling masterpiece, Girl with a Pearl Earring. This novel is perfect for fans of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus and Essie Fox’s Somnambulist.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
An interesting and detailed picture of London in the late eighteenth century. The people and the industries of the time, along with the feeling of unrest as King George worries that his citizens will revolt like the French.
It took me a little while to get into the story, possibly because I wasn't particularly interested in the circus or the Astleys who owned it. I found it a little poor but it did improve and as the story developed I did grow to like Jem and Maggie, the main characters.
I would disagree with the synopsis that states, "Their friendship takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their neighbour...William Blake." They hardly become entangled. He's a printer, a radical and poet who just happens to be a neighbour and features briefly from time to time to give them a little food for thought.
Pleasant, but not gripping.
It took me a little while to get into the story, possibly because I wasn't particularly interested in the circus or the Astleys who owned it. I found it a little poor but it did improve and as the story developed I did grow to like Jem and Maggie, the main characters.
I would disagree with the synopsis that states, "Their friendship takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their neighbour...William Blake." They hardly become entangled. He's a printer, a radical and poet who just happens to be a neighbour and features briefly from time to time to give them a little food for thought.
Pleasant, but not gripping.
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This was a good read, a good tale, but nothing exciting. It told you little bits about William Blake, but I do not feel like a Blake connoisseur having read this! The book tells of a family moving from Dorsetshire to London in 1792, which would probably ring true with anyone making a similar move today. The family live next door to William Blake, and occasionally their paths cross. I loved 'Girl with a Pearl Earring,' it made me seek out Vermeer's work, and look with renewed vigour at Dutch painting. This book simply does not enthuse you with any similar passion.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I suspect that if you have never read any of Tracy Chevalier's work, you'll like this book better than if you are a fan. Burning Bright intensely develops London with a sense of place that you won't find exceeded in too many novels based in the 1790s. But with London being such a big part of the book, you may find the plot and the characters pale by comparison. That's why I rated the book at three stars.
If you loved Girl with a Pearl Earring and carry with you the joy that you gained from learning about Vermeer and painting, I suspect you'll think that Burning Bright is more like a two-star book. Other than his sympathies for the French Revolution, you won't know much more about Blake when the book ends than when it began (except for a few glimpses of his personal quirks).
Those who will love this book best will be those who want to know about Philip Astley and Astley's Circus. Astley was the founder of the modern circus and cut quite a colorful figure in English society at the time. Ms. Chevalier's fictional characters are intimately tied to Astley, his son, and the circus.
You'll spend most of your time following the Kellaway family (father, Thomas, a maker of fine chairs; mother, Anne, a button maker and homemaker; daughter, Maisie, apprentice button maker; and Jem, son, apprenticed to his father) as they leave rural Dorset to follow up on Astley's promise of sponsorship for their chair making if they come to London. Astley, with prodding, makes good and the Kellaways are soon tenants in an Astley building. We see London through their fresh eyes.
To draw the contrast between rural people and Londoners, Ms. Chevalier develops another fictional family, the Butterfields, whose father, Dick, runs scams, whose son, Charlie, is an unenthusiastic scamster in training, whose mother, Bet, is a washerwoman, and whose daughter, Maggie, works in factory jobs and as a washerwoman, too. The families are mainly connected through Jem and Maggie who become friends.
William Blake and his wife are neighbors of the Kellaways. The two mostly make cameo appearances except for a few occasions where Blake discusses philosophy with Jem and Maggie. As the book ends, Blake has become attached to the two and provides a valuable gift for each.
William Blake is the poet I most often quote in my books. He has a timeless ability to capture the essence of modern ironies . . . especially the way that our perspective captures our ability to perceive and enjoy. Knowing his poetic works quite well, I looked forward to gaining a deeper appreciation. Just the opposite happened; there was so little Blake, the poet, in the book that I felt him disappearing from my perception.
This tyger needed to burn a lot brighter than it did.
If you loved Girl with a Pearl Earring and carry with you the joy that you gained from learning about Vermeer and painting, I suspect you'll think that Burning Bright is more like a two-star book. Other than his sympathies for the French Revolution, you won't know much more about Blake when the book ends than when it began (except for a few glimpses of his personal quirks).
Those who will love this book best will be those who want to know about Philip Astley and Astley's Circus. Astley was the founder of the modern circus and cut quite a colorful figure in English society at the time. Ms. Chevalier's fictional characters are intimately tied to Astley, his son, and the circus.
You'll spend most of your time following the Kellaway family (father, Thomas, a maker of fine chairs; mother, Anne, a button maker and homemaker; daughter, Maisie, apprentice button maker; and Jem, son, apprenticed to his father) as they leave rural Dorset to follow up on Astley's promise of sponsorship for their chair making if they come to London. Astley, with prodding, makes good and the Kellaways are soon tenants in an Astley building. We see London through their fresh eyes.
To draw the contrast between rural people and Londoners, Ms. Chevalier develops another fictional family, the Butterfields, whose father, Dick, runs scams, whose son, Charlie, is an unenthusiastic scamster in training, whose mother, Bet, is a washerwoman, and whose daughter, Maggie, works in factory jobs and as a washerwoman, too. The families are mainly connected through Jem and Maggie who become friends.
William Blake and his wife are neighbors of the Kellaways. The two mostly make cameo appearances except for a few occasions where Blake discusses philosophy with Jem and Maggie. As the book ends, Blake has become attached to the two and provides a valuable gift for each.
William Blake is the poet I most often quote in my books. He has a timeless ability to capture the essence of modern ironies . . . especially the way that our perspective captures our ability to perceive and enjoy. Knowing his poetic works quite well, I looked forward to gaining a deeper appreciation. Just the opposite happened; there was so little Blake, the poet, in the book that I felt him disappearing from my perception.
This tyger needed to burn a lot brighter than it did.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Exciting and heartwarming
A gritty, exciting, sometimes sad and often heartwarming take about three teenage children in late 18th century London. Read more
Published 23 days ago by Gary Selikow
Live Forever....
In case you missed my Blake love in Ackroyd's biography of the poet, let me just begin by saying Blake is amazing :) Chevalier does him credit (although she isn't exactly adhering... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Stephanopolisrose
Smog falls over Chevalier
OK, so a family leaves Dorset and goes to London and then goes back again. And some things happen to some of the family, and some could be quiet dramatic - but they aren't. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Dillon the Villain
Burning Bright? I think NOT.
Like many of the other reviewers here, I am a fan of Chevalier, and expected to be as enthralled by 'Burning Bright' as I was by her other novels. I was sorely disapointed. Read more
Published 6 months ago by jojo
Disappointing: a missed opportunity
This novel is set in London during 1792-93. It features two fictional families (the Kellaway family who have recently migrated to London from Dorset, and the Butterfield family who... Read more
Published 7 months ago by James
An unremarkable read not about Blake
I should probably preface this by saying I'm not a fan of Tracy Chevalier. She seems determined to follow a trend (over I dare to hope) of including historical figures in her... Read more
Published 7 months ago by V.R. Christensen
Burning Bright.
An unusual story about life in London just prior to the French Revolution. Characters are well drawn. An easy and enjoyable read.
Published 8 months ago by B. C. Dobson
For children?
I really struggled to understand here what the big thing about this writer is. Is this book for children because that is how it reads. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mira
Put It On The Back Burner
Tracy Chevalier has written some fantastic books but unfortunately this is not one of them.
She crafts the story of the Kellaway family who move from rural England to... Read more
She crafts the story of the Kellaway family who move from rural England to... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Little Miss Bookworm
Pleasant escapism
I found this a pleasant listen (audio book from the library.) I always judge an audio book by how clean my kitchen is or how much ironing I have done. Read more
Published 10 months ago by C. Glynn
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