Sidney Colvin: an unlikely hero #BeyondtheBook #TheAbsentHeart

Adapted from my my Beyond the Book newsletter of September 2024. Sign up for future issues here.

If Frances Sitwell is my heroine, who is the hero? It would be easy to argue for Louis Stevenson (who has a way of taking centre stage even when he isn’t present!) but chief contender for male lead must surely be the third member of that curious love triangle, Sidney Colvin, Frances’s ‘companion’ for most of her life, also R.L.S.’s friend and literary mentor.

Sir Sidney ColvinLady Colv...