The Doll Factory, the debut novel by Elizabeth Macneal, is an intoxicating story of art, obsession and possession. London. 1850. The Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and among the crowd watching the spectacle two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist, it is the encounter of a moment – forgotten seconds later, but for Silas, a collector entranced by the strange and beautiful, that meeting marks a new beginning.
When Iris is asked to model for pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint. Suddenly her world begins to expand, to become a place of art and love.
But Silas has only thought of one thing since their meeting, and his obsession is darkening...
Elizabeth Macneal is a Scottish author and potter based in London.
Her first novel, The Doll Factory, has been translated into 29 languages. It is set in 1850s London, and it is about a young woman who aspires to be an artist, and the man whose obsession may destroy her world forever. It was a Sunday Times bestseller, a Radio 2 Book Club pick, a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and a Waterstones Book of the Month. It is currently being adapted for a major TV series.
Her second novel, Circus of Wonders is about a girl who is kidnapped by a travelling circus, and who must find her voice in this dark and spectacular world. Moving from the pleasure gardens of Victorian London to the battle-scarred plains of the Crimea, Circus of Wonders is a story about power and ownership, fame and the threat of invisibility. It was a Sunday Times bestseller, Sunday Times ‘book of the month’, and was reviewed by The Guardian as ‘glittering’ and a work of "subtlety and originality."
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