Elizabeth and Georgiana: The Duke of Devonshire and His Two Duchesses - Hardcover

Dormer, Jane; Chapman, Caroline

3.64

75 ratings by Goodreads

9780719560446: Elizabeth and Georgiana: The Duke of Devonshire and His Two Duchesses

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719560446 ISBN 13: 9780719560446

Publisher: John Murray, 2002

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Animated by beauty, intelligence and thirst for knowledge - but forever at the mercy of her too feeling heart - Lady Elizabeth Foster's life was dramatic, colourful and riven by crises both personal and political. Born a Hervey, one of the foremost families in England, she married young and foolishly. Within seven years she was separated from her husband and children, and condemned to pass her days in poverty and social obscurity. But her meeting with the Duke of Devonshire and his enchanting wife Georgiana changed her life for ever. She became Georgiana's inseparable friend, the Duke's mistress and a member of the Devonshire House circle, a social and political elite composed of some of the most brilliant figures of their day. Gifted with a remarkable memory, she recorded in her journals every twist and turn of the Regency crises, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.;With unlimited access to the Dormer archives, the journals and unpublished letters still owned by Lady Elizabeth's descendant, Caroline Chapman reveals not the false friend and scheming mistress portrayed by previous chronicles of the period but a woman passionately attached to the Duke and Duchess, devoted to her children and capable of lasting friendships with major figures like Madame de Stael and Edward Gibbon. Always an ardent European and intrepid traveller, after her marriage to the Duke and his death, her last years were spent in Rome where she rapidly achieved eminence in society as a brilliant hostess, patron of the arts and as the close friend of one of the century's greatest statesmen, Cardinal Consalvi.

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Review:

"Meticulously researched." -- Yorkshire Post

"No trio could be stranger than theirs." -- Elizabeth Longford

"Strongly recommended." -- Country Life

"We can only read about them and marvel." -- Antonia Fraser

From the Publisher:

This is one of the strangest love stories in history, played out against the fascinating background of high political life in London and Europe, and the glittering social worlds of Chatsworth and Devonshire House.

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