The remarkable story of the young wife of Henry Grattan Guinness, one of the Victorian period's great evangelists - a life that sheds light on the interplay of faith, politics and family life through the historic times of the early twentieth century.
'I have written about it all - my incredibly rich little life: so many precious memories committed to diaries, letters and journals, and stored in a large trunk under my bed.'
Most famous for her unconventional marriage to renowned speaker and evangelist Henry Grattan Guinness, Grace's journals reveal an extraordinary woman who in many ways was before her time: a rebel against the constraints of her narrow religious upbringing, unconventional in her choice of husband, defiant of a society that frowned on a well-bred single mother going out to work, a businesswoman who ran her own hotel, and an early feminist who went on to work right into her seventies.
She read The Times every day, got through at least one book a week and could comment eruditely on politics, science, philosophy, theology, music and literature... This was a woman who wrote in a frank and sometimes risqué way about her life, love, hopes and fears, and encouraged others to breaks some of the taboos of their generation.
In Grace, Michele Guinness weaves together the revealing contents of Grace's own words with her own to create a unique and inspiring interpretation of this remarkable woman's life and times.
Michele Guinness is a well-known speaker and the bestselling author of The Guinness Spirit, Is God Good for Women?, Autumn Leave and, most recently, Archbishop. She worked for many years as a broadcast journalist, then in PR for the NHS. She is now retired with two children and three grandchildren, and divides her time between Kent and France with her husband, Canon Peter Guinness.
...this fascinating narrative of a truly remarkable lady... a superb social commentary of her times.
