'Intimate and urgent' Financial Times
'A vivid portrait of a tumultuous 20th century life' Mail on Sunday
'A rich and rewarding read' Daily Telegraph
'I was a liberated woman long before there was a name for it' PEGGY GUGGENHEIM
VENICE, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. Hers has been a thrilling, tragic, near-impossible journey. She has defied every expectation, followed her heart, and finally found contentment. She is independent. She is a true original. And she'll never stop believing in the transformative power of art.
Peggy is fourteen when her father dies on the Titanic and her cloistered life is turned upside down. The youngest daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy is determined to pursue a life of passion and personal freedom. But unexpected restrictions come with her vast fortune.
As society changes and war sweeps through Europe, she navigates the decadent, sexist and anti-Semitic art worlds of New York and Paris. She loves and is loved - sometimes for herself, often for her money - yet no-one ever takes her intellect, talent or vision seriously. Until she learns to believe in it herself.
Rebecca Godfrey's final book - completed by her friend, the acclaimed bestseller Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey's death in 2022 - brings to life the singular woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius.
Genre: Historical
'A vivid portrait of a tumultuous 20th century life' Mail on Sunday
'A rich and rewarding read' Daily Telegraph
'I was a liberated woman long before there was a name for it' PEGGY GUGGENHEIM
VENICE, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. Hers has been a thrilling, tragic, near-impossible journey. She has defied every expectation, followed her heart, and finally found contentment. She is independent. She is a true original. And she'll never stop believing in the transformative power of art.
Peggy is fourteen when her father dies on the Titanic and her cloistered life is turned upside down. The youngest daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy is determined to pursue a life of passion and personal freedom. But unexpected restrictions come with her vast fortune.
As society changes and war sweeps through Europe, she navigates the decadent, sexist and anti-Semitic art worlds of New York and Paris. She loves and is loved - sometimes for herself, often for her money - yet no-one ever takes her intellect, talent or vision seriously. Until she learns to believe in it herself.
Rebecca Godfrey's final book - completed by her friend, the acclaimed bestseller Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey's death in 2022 - brings to life the singular woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius.
Genre: Historical
Praise for this book
"Peggy had often been misunderstood and disrespected, seen as a slutty dilettante who threw her money around. But Rebecca [Godfrey] took Peggy seriously, as a woman full of wit, savvy, and passion, hungry for experience and purpose and with an eye for art, and for people, that others couldn't yet appreciate." - Leslie Jamison
"A beautifully imagined and superbly written novel about the tenuous line between life and art. Godfrey brilliantly resurrects the avant-garde adventurer Peggy Guggenheim as a feminist icon for our times." - Jenny Offill
"A tremendous work of the imagination . . . Peggy Guggenheim embodied the twentieth century, but attempts to capture her vitality and uniqueness have tended to fall flat. No more! Rebecca Godfrey's prose is as stylish as her protagonist and every bit as deep, sensuous, and thoughtful. . . . An unparalleled life presented as a page-turner." - Gary Shteyngart
"A beautifully imagined and superbly written novel about the tenuous line between life and art. Godfrey brilliantly resurrects the avant-garde adventurer Peggy Guggenheim as a feminist icon for our times." - Jenny Offill
"A tremendous work of the imagination . . . Peggy Guggenheim embodied the twentieth century, but attempts to capture her vitality and uniqueness have tended to fall flat. No more! Rebecca Godfrey's prose is as stylish as her protagonist and every bit as deep, sensuous, and thoughtful. . . . An unparalleled life presented as a page-turner." - Gary Shteyngart
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