The Bolter - Hardcover

Osbourne, Frances

3.72

4,250 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844084817 ISBN 13: 9781844084814

Publisher: Virago Press Ltd, 2008

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On Friday 25th May, 1934, a forty-one-year-old woman walked into the lobby of Claridge's Hotel to meet the nineteen-year-old son whose face she did not know. Fifteen years earlier, as the First World War ended, Idina Sackville shocked high society by leaving his multimillionaire father to run off to Africa with a near penniless man. An inspiration for Nancy Mitford's character The Bolter, painted by William Orpen, and photographed by Cecil Beaton, Sackville went on to divorce a total of five times, yet died with a picture of her first love by her bed. Her struggle to reinvent her life with each new marriage left one husband murdered and branded her the 'high priestess' of White Mischief's bed-hopping Happy Valley in Kenya. Sackville's life was so scandalous that it was kept a secret from her great-granddaughter Frances Osborne. Now, Osborne tells the moving tale of betrayal and heartbreak behind Sackville's road to scandal and return, painting a dazzling portrait of high society in the early twentieth century.

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Review:

'A bewitching character brilliantly painted' -- Easy Living

'An engaging book and a definitive final look back at those naughty people who, between the wars, took their bad behaviour off to Kenya and whose upper-class delinquency became gilded with unjustified glamour.' -- Alexandra Fuller, Financial Times

'Capturing the fragile times in which Idina lived, The Bolter is a biographical treat.' -- Good Housekeeping

'Osborne has had, as you would expect a family member, unprecedented access to Sackville's diaries - and those of most of her husbands.'
-- Kayt Turner, Scotland on Sunday

'Osborne has written an enthralling account of a dazzling troubled life.' -- Julian Fellowes, Daily Mail

'Osborne is an imaginative scene painter... Idina wasn't admirable, but Osborne makes us sympathise with her.' -- Marianne Brace, Independent

'Osborne paints an enthralling portrait of upper-class English life just before, during and immediately after the Great War.' -- Robert McCrum, Observer

'Osborne tells this tragic-comedy of the Jazz Age with wit and style . . . an enthralling account of a dazzling, troubled life.' -- Julian Fellowes, Daily Mail

'Osborne unearthed the moving truth behind the headlines. It's a melancholy, vivid portrait of a lost lady and her troubled world' -- Marie Claire

Book Description:

* 'This is a truly astonishing book. Frances Osborne has not just brought to life a dizzyingly rich and scandalous slice of social history, she has produced a tragic and deeply moving tale as well. It is far more gripping than any novel I have read for years' Antony Beevor

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