The Pinecone: The Story of Sarah Losh, Forgotten Romantic Heroine--Antiquarian, Architect, and Visionary
*Starred Review* Uglow takes such delight in her work that every page shimmers and whirls. On a mission to rescue neglected, radical English artists, such as Thomas Bewick (Nature’s Engraver, 2007), she now richly and inquisitively portrays brainy and independent Sarah Losh (1786–1853). Uglow grew up in Cumbria, Losh’s home territory, and knows well the wildly unconventional church Losh designed and built in the village of Wreay, a house of worship brimming with imagery drawn from Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions, all shaped by Losh’s passion for fossils and science. Losh even helped craft the carved stone and wood vines, lotus flowers, dragon, butterflies, raven, bat, eagle, stork, and her favorite, the pinecone, an “ancient symbol of regeneration, fertility, and inner enlightenment.” What sort of Victorian Englishwoman would construct a pantheistic temple? Bright, willful, and soon motherless, young Losh was supported in her quest for education by her wealthy industrialist father (Uglow’s history of the family fortune is fascinating) and progressive uncle. Losh deflected her suitors to live a liberated life with her beloved sister, whose death precipitated Losh’s phenomenal surge of creativity. Uglow expertly sets Losh’s singular story within a historical context as intricately detailed and vital as Losh’s church as she shares her profound appreciation for this visionary and her “defiant celebration of life and art.” --Donna Seaman