The Quality of Love: Twin Sisters at the Heart of the Century

A rich family archive reveals the incredible lives and loves of two sisters who captivated Europe’s intelligentsia

When her mother Celia Paget died, Ariane Bankes inherited a battered trunk stuffed with letters and diaries belonging to Celia and her twin Mamaine. This correspondence charted the remarkable lives of the Paget sisters and their friends and lovers, including Arthur Koestler, Albert Camus, Sartre and de Beauvoir, Edmund Wilson and George Orwell.

The Quality of Love weaves the story of these charismatic and beautiful identical twins who overcame a meagre education to take 1930s London society by storm and move among Europe’s foremost intellectuals during the twentieth century’s most dramatic decades. Above all, it is a sparkling portrait of the deep connection between two spirited sisters.

PRAISE FOR THE QUALITY OF LOVE

'Taking us from the high bohemia of 1930s London to the European intellectual scene of the 1940s and 1950s, Ariane Bankes weaves a story as spirited and alluring as the Paget sisters at its centre' Antonia Fraser

'The sisters’ charms and talent for friendship are evident, as various stars of the postwar European intellectual firmament pass through the book’s pages. Most of all, though, it is enriched by the correspondence between the twins – for, ultimately, the great love story is theirs alone' Telegraph

'Lives at the intellectual heart of the mid-20th century... Part of the book’s fascination lies in the domestic side of these intellectuals... Oh, what lives they both led!' Spectator

© 2024 Duckworth Books (Audiobook): 9780715655672

Release date

Audiobook: May 2, 2024