Allan Massie

Promenades

Footprints in Paris: A Few Streets, A Few Lives

By

Chatto & Windus 336pp £17.99 order from our bookshop

Gillian Tindall’s very enjoyable new book traces the associations of various members of her family with the old Latin Quarter of Paris. The story begins with her great-great-grandfather, Arthur Jacob, an Edinburgh-educated surgeon from Dublin, who walked from Scotland to Paris in 1814 – the year of Napoleon’s defeat and exile to Elba – and ends with herself, though she eschews the first person and writes of ‘Julia’ as a character to be observed and commented on. There is a medical theme to the book, for her grandfather, Bertie Tindall (who married Blanche Jacob, Arthur’s granddaughter), became a publisher specialising in medical books and had a long connection with a Parisian firm. The medical theme explains the emphasis on these ‘few streets’, for the teaching hospitals of Paris were located on the Left Bank.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'The physical courage he demonstrated as a young man [...] gave way to intellectual power; radical thought, gifted… ,
    • 'While Jane Austen didn’t perhaps achieve the full recognition that she deserved in her lifetime, even then she out… ,
    • 'All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And t… ,
    • 'You are interested in a particular subject; basic research hardens this interest into an obsession, after which th… ,
    • 'Keynes predicted that future generations would enjoy such an improved standard of living that they might work just… ,
    • 'Various dislocations ... emerge, iceberg-like, out of a troubled sea of unconscious motivation and confront Eisenb… ,
    • Today is the first today of the – they've got some excellent events coming up over the next two weeks.… ,
    Follow Us