2025 Festival Event

Emily Howes
Emily Howes

The Painter’s Daughters

Debut novelist Emily Howes meets the highly regarded writer and critic Antonia Senior to talk about the eighteenth-century artist Thomas Gainsborough and the writing of her book, The Painter’s Daughters. It’s a reimagining of the lives of Gainsborough’s two daughters, Peggy and Molly, and the complicated relationship between them. Winner of the Mslexia Novel Competition and chosen for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club, the novel explores the story of the sisters – famously immortalised in their father’s paintings – and their struggles with society, control, individuality and insanity.


This is the Debut Author Event, sponsored by the Bell family.

Emily Howes - The Painter's Daughters
Antonia Senior
Antonia Senior
Antonia Senior is a highly regarded writer, journalist and critic. She specialises in historical fiction and writes regularly for The Times, The Guardian and The Spectator.
Tickets cost £12 / £18 / £20 depending on the event.
There is a 25% saving on all festival books pre-ordered with event tickets.

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2025 Festival Schedule

4pm

6pm

8pm

10.00am

11.30am

12n

2pm

4pm

6pm

8pm

12n

2pm

4pm

6pm

8pm

A printed festival programme is available at the Barnes Bookshop, 98 Church Road.