Laura Ashley - Anne Sebba

'It is an extraordinary story.' Sunday Times

The name 'Laura Ashley' is an international byword for the classic English countrywoman living in domestic bliss. But what was Laura Ashley the woman really like, behind the faade of the family-based company that not only used her name, but was moulded on her personal image?

Anne Sebba describes Laura the astute business woman with her sure instinct for forecasting trends, her canny feel for colour and fabric and her often brilliant but perfectly simple ideas. She describes Laura the wife and mother: her relationship with Bernard, her sadness at leaving Wales and her family for life on the Continent, her conviction that her place was with her husband.

An absorbing biography of this remarkable woman who became one of the leading influences in the twentieth century on British design and marketing.

'This is a moving book. Anne Sebba has written a vivid, true story. She writes with frankness and without frills.' Sunday Telegraph