London 1850. Iris works in a doll shop, carefully painting on the expressions of dolls every day. But she yearns for more.

She is approached by the artist Louis Frost to be his new model. She agrees, but, as part of the deal, she asks him to teach her how to draw. He obeys her wishes and she becomes his student model and model-student.

Iris goes to the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park where she meets a man called Silas Reed. He is a taxidermist who stalks her and becomes obsessed with Iris and her twin sister, Rose.

We follow the activity of Iris (and Silas’s pursuits!) and her time spent with Louis. We are convincingly shown all the worries that go with the beginnings of a relationship (‘Does he think she is beautiful?’ etc.) and the difficult dynamics of family are well played out too.

The book is filled with Pre-Raphaelite artists, Milliais and Rossetti, Art history and literature are always such good companions, aren’t they? I can tell the novel has been thoroughly researched and I think any reader new to the Pre-Raphaelite movement will appreciate the information skilfully woven into the text.

There are some lovely moments of rich description in the book. The smells of nineteenth-century London are very vivid: ‘Down the sweeping boulevard of the Strand, through the ant trail of hurrying clerks, and into a dead-end alley, barely a shoulder’s width – he takes a breath, as the smell is abominable – and he trots to Silas’s shop’; ‘The smell of burnt sugar is making her headache’; ‘The smell of mouldy plaster’; ‘A pocket of air escapes, gamey, sweet and putrid’; ‘smell the oil on his clothes,’ ‘There is a stench of stomach acid,’ etc. It creates a very lively sensory experience for the reader and I truly felt some of the smells waft up from the pages!

The Doll Factory is such a good book, beautiful and interesting, and I highly recommend it.

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal was published by Picador in May 2019.