The Duchess - Softcover

Foreman, Amanda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812979699 ISBN 13: 9780812979695

Publisher: Random House Trade, 2008

Synopsis

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

Lady Georgiana Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was nearly as famous in her day. In 1774 Georgiana achieved immediate celebrity by marrying William Cavendish, fifth duke of Devonshire, one of England's richest and most influential aristocrats. She became the queen of fashionable society and founder of the most important political salon of her time. But Georgiana's public success concealed an unhappy marriage, a gambling addiction, drinking, drug-taking, and rampant love affairs with the leading politicians of the day. With penetrating insight, Amanda Foreman reveals a fascinating woman whose struggle against her own weaknesses, whose great beauty and flamboyance, and whose determination to play a part in the affairs of the world make her a vibrant, astonishingly contemporary figure.

Praise for The Duchess

"Georgiana bursts from the pages of Amanda Foreman's dazzling biography like the force of nature she undoubtedly was-passionate, political, addicted to gambling, and drunk on life. This is a stunning book about an astonishing woman."-Simon Schama

"Biography at its best . . . seamlessly merges a life and its times, capturing not just an individual but an age."-The New York Times Book Review

"Riveting . . . marvelously diverting."-The New Yorker

About this title

Review:

Georgiana Spencer was, in a sense, an 18th-century "It Girl". She came from one of England's richest and most landed families, and married into another. She was, beautiful, sensitive, and extravagant. Acquainted fairly young with Charles James Fox, her move from parties to Parties led her to become the intimate of ministers and princes, and she canvassed assiduously for the Whig cause, most famously in the Westminster election of 1784. By turns she was caricatured and fawned on by the press, and she provided the inspiration for Lady Teazle in Sheridan's School For Scandal. But, luckily for her biographer, she also had weaknesses that were to taint her life.

As gin gripped the masses, so gambling thralled the aristocracy. By 1784 Georgiana owed "many, many, many thousands", and the creditors she acquired dogged her until her death, but the sterility of her marriage meant that she never came close to disclosing the magnitude of her debts. Amanda Foreman describes astutely the mess that was personal relationships for the aristocratic subculture (Georgiana and the Duke engaged for many years in a ménage à trois with Lady Elizabeth Fraser, who inveigled her way into his bed and her heart). She is, by her own admission, a little in love with her subject, which can lead to occasional lapses of perspective, but generally it adds zest to a narrative built on, rather than burdened by, scholarship, that is at once accessible and learned. An impressive debut, in every sense. --David Vincent

Review:

"Georgiana bursts from the pages of Amanda Foreman's dazzling biography like the force of nature she undoubtedly was-passionate, political, addicted to gambling, and drunk on life. This is a stunning book about an astonishing woman."-Simon Schama

"Biography at its best . . . seamlessly merges a life and its times, capturing not just an individual but an age."-The New York Times Book Review

"Riveting . . . marvelously diverting."-The New Yorker

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0812979699
• ISBN 13: 9780812979695
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512