George and Emily Eden

George and Emily Eden were a devoted sibling pair. Bothunmarried, they were accepted as a mildly unconventional couple by friends inthe dynastically conscious governing class. George (1784-1849) entered politicsas a Whig to replace his elder brother, who had been groomed for success butdrowned in the Thames off Westminster one January night in 1810. Four yearslater George inherited his father''s peerage as 2nd Baron Auckland.In 1835 he was appointed Governor-General of India, and Emily (1797-1869), although reluctant to leave her close friend,the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, went with him. A wittyand perceptive writer, who later published a distinctively voiced pair ofnovels, Emily chronicled the Indian period, as she did her entire adult life, inletters. Allen traces the development ofher closeness to George, their interlocking private and public lives and theevents that impacted on them, including the Afghan disaster of January 1842 andthe mixture of blame and forbearance that George attracted at home. A poignantcoda describes Emily''s final twenty years as Victorian invalid, author, andobserver of the political scene.