Noble Beasts

A thing of beauty is a great temptation.

It's the summer of 1858 and everyone who can has fled London. As a foul miasma hangs over the capital, Sir Edwin Landseer is toiling at a fever pitch. Because England needs lions, England expects lions, and fifteen years to finish a monument like Nelson's column is a disgrace.

But as lions stalk the sculptor's alcohol-fuelled nightmares, his dreams travel to the past. No longer an old man losing his grip on reality, his thoughts turn to the waning Regency, when the Duchess Bedford — twenty years his senior — first burst into young Edwin's life.

Blending the hazy romance of the Scottish Highlands with the history of Trafalgar Square, Noble Beasts charts Landseer's relationship to the Queen, the Royal Academy, and the infamous rumour that Edwin Landseer, the painter to call if you wanted dogs or deer, was taking more from the Duke of Bedford than the occasional commission.

This is the story of a famed artist, a scandalous affair, and the beasts that roamed his mind.