Author Talk

Join us to celebrate the publication of Mrs Kauffman and Madame Le Brun: The Extraordinary Entwined Lives of Two Eighteenth-Century Painters by Franny Moyle We are delighted to welcome Franny Moyle for a talk on her fascinating new book on Angelica Kauffman and Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. In the spring of 1790 two of the most gifted artists in Europe met in Rome and became fast friends, sharing their views on art, visiting the city’s ancient sites and making trips to the opera together over several happy weeks. The Swiss history painter Angelica Kauffman and the French portraitist Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun are no longer household names in the early twenty-first century but were much-fêted celebrities in the late eighteenth. The two had much in common: both had been child prodigies; both were members of the prestigious Academies of their respective countries; both had been celebrated court painters; both had made disastrous marriages that had drained them financially and made them the subject of scandal. Franny Moyle uses their meeting in the eternal city as the point of departure for a lavishly illustrated ‘life and times’ biography of two brilliant but neglected women artists whose lives and creative careers straddled the political upheavals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Mrs Kauffman and Madame Le Brun allows Moyle to explore an age of political, aesthetic and social revolution via a web of connections that embraces many of the most intriguing and powerful personalities of the time – to view a whole era of changing ideas and political ferment through the prism of the intertwined tales of two remarkable, rediscovered female lives. The event is free and unticketed but seats are limited so please do RSVP in advance so that we can ensure you are sitting comfortably and your glass will be full.  

Heron Books is delighted to welcome Cécile Tlili to celebrate the publication of Just a Little Dinner.

Do join us to meet Cécile, enjoy a discussion with her publisher, Richard Village of Foundry Books, and get your copies signed.

The event is free. Please RSVP to read@heronbooks.co.uk so that we know how many to expect. 

About the book:
In tired, hot Paris at the end of August, a group of friends, who’d rather still be at the sea, meet for a dinner in one couple’s apartment. Taking us behind the shutters of the Sixth Arrondissement, with a cast of characters that both delight and repel, fractured relationships, manipulation, bad behaviour and desperation are all laid bare in this very contemporary take on a Parisian huis clos story. What starts as just a little dinner ends up having monumental consequences for everyone.

We are delighted to be supporting this event at St George's: 

Professor David Olusoga OBE, BAFTA winning film-maker and author returns to St Georges due to popular demand.

In a brand-new talk for 2025 David examines some of history’s missing chapters to uncover how and why some events and some people are remembered and others forgotten. Taking examples from the world wars, the Industrial revolution and other pivotal moments in global history David uncovers history’s missing persons.