The Pinecone: The Story of Sarah Losh, Forgotten Romantic Heroine—Antiquarian, Architect, and Visionary

This is as much a biography of an era, a coming-of-age story about an England on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution, when romanticism and industrial fervor coexisted, as it is about an exceptional 19th-century woman—whose writings have not in fact survived. Uglow (The Lunar Men) portrays the innovation and intellect of the privileged Miss Sarah Losh (1786–1853), a writer and poet as well as an architect. The title refers to the emblem she used extensively in the eccentric Lake District church she designed. In many ways this is an interpretive biography, with Uglow understanding Sarah as well as her sister through the writings of their male family members and associates. The approach results in Uglow's simultaneously broad yet detailed perspective. Endowed with a liberal education from her father, his compatriots (including William Wordsworth) and her uncle James Losh, and with the resolve to benefit from it, Losh and her sister, rather than their sickly younger brother, inherited their father's wealthy estate. Uglow focuses on the whimsical church designed by Sarah Losh and how she was able to pursue such an undertaking that reflected both the Industrial Age and the romantic appeal of nature.