The "blurb" was a bit misleading as the story is not told entirely from one person's point of view, but it is a fascinating account of the beginning of the industrial age, and sobering to think that the exciting developments happening back then have brought us to where we are today: possibly not exactly the utopia Josiah envisioned? ( )

Well written and enjoyable novel based on the life of Wedgwood ( )

This was rather an odd book encompassing a biography of Josiah Wedgwood within a novel set against the American War of Independence in which Tom, Wedgwood's nephew sets off from New York to the lands of the Cherokees to buy some of their splendid white clay to fuel Wedgwood's dreams of expansion. It was certainly very informative and I imagine it represented hundreds of hours of deep research.

I was definitely impressed to discover that Wedgwood was grandfather of Charles Darwin (the novel opens with Erasmus Darwin, father of Charles, supervising the gruesome amputation by fret saw of one of Wedgwood's legs), and also numbered composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and notable historian C V Wedgwood among his descendants.

As one might expect from A N Wilson, this book is beautifully written, and rattles along with plenty of hilarious episodes intermingled with passages of great sensitivity. However, I never felt entirely comfortable with it, and think it might have been wiser to stick to conventional biography (of which, of course, Wilson has shown himself a master). Perhaps I'm just being capricious - after all, prior to reading this book I think that everything i knew about Josiah Wedgwood might have been accommodated on the back of a postage stamp. Now, though, I feel I know altogether too much! ( )