Tangled Souls

The glittering, poignant and often shocking story of the love affair between two members of a group of unconventional aristocrats at the heart of late Victorian society

The glittering, poignant and sometimes shocking story of the love affair between two members of the Souls, the group of unconventional aristocrats at the heart of late Victorian society

Outrageously handsome, witty and clever, Harry Cust was reputed to be one of the great womanisers of the late Victorian era. In 1893, while a Member of Parliament, he caused public scandal by his affair with artist and poet Nina Welby-Gregory. When she revealed she was pregnant, horror swept through their circle known as ‘the Souls’, a cultured, mostly aristocratic group of writers, artists and politicians.

With the unconventional Margot Tennant and philosopher-statesman Arthur Balfour at their centre, the dazzling Souls eschewed the formalities of upper-class etiquette, valuing conversation and clever games above gambling and racing. Passions also raged behind their courtly code, yet bachelor Harry’s seduction of a single woman of the same class broke the rules. For the rest of their lives, Harry and Nina would fight to rebuild their reputations and maintain the marriage they were pressured to enter.

In Tangled Souls, acclaimed biographer Jane Dismore tells the tumultuous story of the romance that threatened to tear apart this distinguished group of friends, revealing pre-war society at its most colourful and most conflicted.

‘Dismore has done a difficult and skilled job in portraying Harry Custas a rounded individual of his time and class with all the qualities and weaknesses in him.’ - Guy Storrs, great-grand-nephew of Harry Cust