"The Boyd family is Australia's most remarkable artistic dynasty. Among the descendants of landscape painter Emma Minnie a Beckett and her husband Arthur Merric Boyd are talented painters, potters, sculptors, architects, writers and musicians." "Potter Merric Boyd, painter Penleigh Boyd and novelist Martin Boyd were followed by Penleigh's son Robin, architect and writer, and by Merric's sons and daughters: painter Arthur, sculptor Guy, painter and potter David, ceramic artist Lucy Boyd Beck and painter Mary, whose first husband was painter John Perceval and who later married Sidney Nolan. The next generation of Boyds, Becks and Percevals continues the tradition in Europe as well as Australia, and a younger one is emerging to careers in music as well as the visual arts." Illustrated, The Boyds is based on family papers, letters and diaries and a wide range of interviews. Moving from 1840s Melbourne to the present day, it covers a vast territory while reading with the ease of a novel.