Claudia Renton: 'It's not just about three women and the dresses they wore'

Claudia Renton was 24 and in a play at the National Theatre when her agent called and asked if she'd like to write a biography of the Wyndham sisters. As a gifted graduate with a first in history from Oxford, she was a perfect candidate. The idea, a brainchild of her agent's husband, was inspired by John Singer Sargent's famous portrait of the three beautiful aristocrats, painted in 1899, a copy of which Renton began carrying on her iPhone. "It stops you in your tracks," she says. "It's subtle yet extraordinary, vivid and beautiful."

It took eight years of hard work to complete Those Wild Wyndhams, but Renton, now 31, has always been fiercely determined. During this time she also pursued a successful acting career (she got her first role aged 18, in a BBC adaptation of The Cazalet Chronicles, by repeatedly writing to the corporation, asking for an audition), as well as going to law school, qualifying and now working as a barrister at Essex Court Chambers in London.

"My law work has made me a better writer," she says. "When you're drafting legal documents, you have to be precise, and the same applies in history."

There have been moments of doubt. Having specialised in 17th- and 18th-century history at university, Renton found the Victorian period new and difficult. During her research, which included sifting through thousands of letters, she says she was "riddled with incredible boredom". But she pushed through.

The book drew heavily on her own relationship with her sister and her mother, who died four years ago, in the middle of Renton's writing. "Finishing it was as much for her as it was for me," she says.

This year promises to be an exciting one for Renton as she reaps the rewards of her hard work. Does she worry that being young and female may act as a hindrance to being taken seriously in the world of history publishing? She says she hopes that when people read the book they will see the work that's gone into it. "It's not just about three women and the dresses that they wore; it's also a social and political history of their time and class. History is no longer just the biography of great men." NK

Those Wild Wyndhams is published on 30 Jan

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