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Lead book review

The identical twins who captivated literary London

Intelligent and beautiful, Celia and Mamaine Paget were loved by some of the greatest writers of the interwar years, but remained uniquely devoted to each other

27 April 2024

9:00 AM

27 April 2024

9:00 AM

The Quality of Love: Twin Sisters at the Heart of the Century Ariane Bankes

Duckworth, pp.288, 18.99

The dazzlingly beautiful identical twins Mamaine and Celia Paget were born in 1916 and brought up in rural Suffolk – not the greatest springboard, you would think, for lives at the intellectual heart of the mid-20th century. Yet the list of their friends reads like a roll call of literary notables: Dick Wyndham, Peter Quennell, Cyril Connolly, Bertrand Russell, Sacheverell Sitwell and Laurie Lee.

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