Under the Wide and Starry Sky: the tempestuous of love story of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny - Hardcover

Horan, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1444778412 ISBN 13: 9781444778410

Publisher: Two Roads, 2014

Synopsis

'FABULOUS' The Times
'FASCINATING' New York Times

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

At the age of thirty-five, Fanny van de Grift Osbourne leaves her philandering husband in San Francisco and sets sail for Belgium to study art, with her three children and nanny in tow. Not long after her arrival, however, tragedy strikes, and Fanny and her brood repair to a quiet artists' colony in France where she can recuperate. There she meets Robert Louis Stevenson, ten years her junior, who is instantly smitten with the earthy, independent, and opinionated belle Americaine.

A woman ahead of her time, Fanny does not immediately take to the young lawyer who longs to devote his life to literature rather than the law - and who would eventually write such classics as Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In time, though, she succumbs to Stevenson's charms, and the two begin a fierce love affair-marked by intense joy and harrowing darkness that spans decades as they travel the world, following their art and their dreams.

About this title

Review

Her research is rock-solid but never allowed to get in the way of a fabulous (true) story. (The Times)

A lyrical novel of Robert Louis Stevenson's troubled marriage. Fascinating...Nancy Horan's second historical novel reimagines another tempestuous love story. (New York Times)

Unlike the history books, Horan pays as much attention to Fanny as Louis, and fierce independent soul that she is ... she's more than capable of holding her own. Theirs is the sort of consuming, complicated relationship that may well be exhausting to live through, but on the page it thrills. (Daily Mail)

Operatic, global in its settings and dead-on in its portrayal of pre-feminism-era women and their limited opportunities... Infused with color, passion and intellectual spark... Horan's delightful reimagining ... has created a worthy tribute to Stevenson and the woman who stood by him. (Washington Post)

A great, broad sweep of a narrative (Viv Groskop, Red Magazine)

Warmhearted... Horan drapes this skeleton of facts with a richly imagined musculature of love, laughter, pain and sacrifice. (USA Today)

Fact and fiction blend beautifully in Under the Wide and Starry Sky, which explores the tempestuous love story between Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his American wife. (Good Housekeeping)

Few writers are as masterful as she is at blending carefully researched history with the novelist's art... Once again, I was enthralled. Horan's prose is gorgeous... I kept re-reading passages just to savor the exquisite wordplay. Even the smallest characters, including the nonhuman ones, rate full range of personality (Dallas Morning News)

One for any literature lover, Nancy Horan's Under the Wide and Starry Sky imagines the story of how author Robert Louis Stevenson met his tempestuous wife, Fanny... Their story is interspersed with extracts from Stevenson's own work, which are cleverly fit around his life events, giving the book a compelling biographical edge, which yet does not distract from the tale itself. A thoughtful read, told in very beautiful prose. (Image magazine)

Horan's spectacular second novel (following book-club favorite Loving Frank) has been worth the wait. Brimming with the same artistic verve that drives her complicated protagonists, it follows the loving, tumultuous partnership of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and his Indiana-born wife, Fanny Osbourne ... Equally adventurous and colorful, Louis and Fanny could each command the story singlehandedly. Together, they are riveting and insightfully envisioned ... An exhilarating epic about a free-spirited couple who traveled the world yet found home only in one another (Booklist - starred review)

Book Description

From New York Times bestselling author Nancy Horan comes the passionate and turbulent story of Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous American wife, Fanny, and their creative life and travels together.

Edition details

• Publisher: Two Roads
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1444778412
• ISBN 13: 9781444778410
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 496