The Starlight Years: Love & War at Kelmscott Manor 1940 - 1948

Fascinating story!

This book is a rich treat from beginning to end. It’s about an extraordinary couple, Stephani and Edward – artists of rare talent, dreamers and romantics, who lived through an intense period of creativity, eroticism and high-flying fantasy at Kelmskott Manor, former home of their idol William Morris, during and just after the Second World War, sustained much of the time by a drug they called starlight. The story is told through extracts from the couple’s wonderfully vivid and poetic letters and diaries, selected and interspersed with commentaries by their son Joscelyn. There are also many reproductions of their exquisite and often deliciously decadent paintings. This is a story more riveting than any piece of fiction. I couldn’t put it down.

I've been to Kelmscott Manor, William Morris's home, several times. I am delighted to discover this book, which captures the amazing life of the characters living there during the second world war and seemingly unaffected by it. The paintings have beautiful colors and are very unusual. Gorgeous pages of reproductions. This is a special, distinctive book.