Ariane Bankes (16:45 BST)

When her mother Celia Paget died, Ariane Bankes inherited a battered trunk stuffed with letters and diaries belonging to Celia and her identical twin Mamaine. This correspondence charted the remarkable lives of the Paget sisters and their friends and lovers, including Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler whom Mamaine went on to marry, George Orwell who proposed to Celia, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

Out of this uniquely rich archive, Ariane weaves the story of these captivating and strikingly beautiful twins with their indissoluble sibling love, who overcame a meagre education to take 1930s London society by storm and move among Europe’s foremost intellectuals during the twentieth century’s most dramatic decades. Above all, it is a sparkling portrait of the deep connection between two spirited sisters.

Ariane Bankes, writer and former publisher, brings alive the voices, memories and images of an intoxicating, lost world in The Quality of Love.

In conversation with Georgina Adam

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