(I can’t quite tell which Pre- Raphaelite Brother Louis is based on but the paintings referenced by Millais and Hunt are the real deal.)įar richer and more worldly than she had ever been in her previous life, Iris’s realisation that she is still part of a machine, albeit an artistic one, reveals the proverbial ‘glass ceiling’. 1848), who at once sees potential in her as a model, and she, in him, the possibility of artistic training. Dreaming of becoming an artist and growing resentful of her sister and, more generally, her ‘lot’ in life, Iris encounters Louis Frost, a (fictionalised) member of the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood (est.

Our protagonist, Iris, is apprenticed to a maker of porcelain dolls. Macneal has done well to evoke the environs. This is the London of the open sewer, the urchin pickpocket, of Fagan, the streetwalker, of Bazalgette and Brunel. The streets, bustling with activity, are covered with excrement, adding a stench to the smog-filled air. The London of Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray and Wilkie Collins, where the finishing touches are being put on the Crystal Palace, the site of the Great Exhibition, ahead of its highly anticipated opening.

'A dark delight and fans of The Miniaturist and The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock will love it' - Red Sunday Times Best Paperback of 2020 Pick The Doll Factory will be made into a major TV series.In this unusual, yet confidently written debut, Elizabeth Macneal transports the reader to London, 1851.

And it is only a matter of time before they meet again. As Iris's world expands, Silas's obsession grows. After seeing Iris at the site of the Great Exhibition he finds he cannot forget her. Silas Reed is a curiosity collector, enchanted by the strange and beautiful. Dreaming of freedom, Iris throws herself into a new life of art and love, unaware that she has caught the eye of a second man. Iris agrees, on the condition that he teaches her to paint. Louis is a painter who yearns to have his work displayed in the Royal Academy, and he is desperate for Iris to be his model. On a crowded street, the dollmaker Iris Whittle meets the artist Louis Frost. 'A sharp, scary, gorgeously evocative tale of love, art and obsession' - Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train London. A Sunday Times Bestseller, BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick and BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal is the intoxicating story of one woman's dreams of freedom in Victorian England and the man whose obsession threatens to destroy them forever.