I’m delighted to welcome the novelist Emily Howes to the castle to talk about her book The Painter’s Daughters, inspired by Gainsborough’s portraits of his two girls and the striking shift from their lively childhood images to a stiffer, unhappier adulthood. 

Emily shares how she researched 18th-century Bath, its muddy, smelly, party-like medical culture, through visits and sources such as James Hamilton’s biography, Letters from Bath, and books on travel, while noting how little survives from the daughters’ own voices. 

We discuss Molly’s documented illness and Emily’s discovery of a possible porphyria link to the Prince of Wales, as well as Gainsborough’s finances, his wife’s hidden savings, and the sisters’ relationship, which Emily likens to Downton Abbey’s sister dynamics. 

Emily also previews her next novel, Mrs Dickens, exploring Catherine Dickens’s erasure after Dickens left her for Ellen Turner and the fate of their children.

00:46 Why the Daughters

03:20 Bath After Covid

05:57 Money and Marriage

08:18 Research and Sources

09:27 Molly Illness Mystery

12:21 Sisters and Downton

16:05 Blue Boy and Imagination

17:25 Gainsborough at Highclere

22:23 Next Book Mrs Dickens

24:35 Dickens Family Fallout

27:53 Catherine After Separation

You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/

New episodes are published on the first day of every month.