A father who is never wrong, never yields, and never doubts that severity is love - and four children who grow up around him, each damaged in a different direction. Arthur wrote to improve his readers, and the improving dates; this study of domestic tyranny does not. The father is drawn from the inside, which is what makes it uncomfortable. Fifty-nine plates by painters including Edvard Munch and Richard Redgrave trace the same domestic interiors, sick children, and broken homes the novel dissects, from 1826 to 1925.
