Fiction
A N Wilson talks to Jenny Uglow
The Potter’s Hand
1:00pm | Thursday 13 September 2012Tickets: | Duration: | Venue: |
£N/A | 1 Hour | St Mary Magdalene Church |
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This was an Oxford Literary Festival 2012 Event.
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Celebrated novelist and biographer A.N.Wilson discusses his latest novel The Potter’s Hand, with fellow biographer Jenny Uglow. Wilson returns to his roots in Staffordshire, where his father was managing director of Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, and explores the lives of members of the famous Wedgwood pottery family. He picks up the story of Josiah Wedgwood in 1774 as he sets out to create a thousand-piece Frog Service for Catherine the Great. The story follows Josiah’s nephew, Tom, as he travels to America to buy clay for china from the Cherokee. Tom is caught up in the American rebellion and falls for a Cherokee woman who ends up playing a role in Josiah’s great creation, the Portland Vase. The Potter’s Hand is a sweeping saga that follows the fortunes of many members of the Wedgwood family.
Wilson is a prolific novelist and biographer. His last novel, Winnie and Wolf, was longlisted for the 2007 Booker prize, and his non-fiction work includes Dante in Love, Tolstoy, The Victorians and C.S. Lewis: A Biography. Uglow’s work includes The Lunar Men, the story of the highly influential Lunar Society that included Josiah Wedgwood among its prominent members. She also appears again at the festival to discuss her new biography The Pinecone: The Story of Forgotten Romantic Sarah Losh.