Daisy: The life and loves of the Countess of Warwick: The Lives and Loves of the Countess of Warwick [Paperback]

This is an enjoyable read about a fascinating woman. A socialist aristocrat with the morals of an alley cat, you couldn't make it up.

However, I also had questions about her liasons - especially with Joe Laycock - one minute the author says he's snubbing Daisy, then she's writing to him. I appreciate their relationship was a tempestuous one, but the lack of detailed explanation left me scratching my head as to what the situation was.

I also felt the lack of any information about "Brookie" and where he was and what he thought about all her affairs. Also, why was he not held liable for her debts? It's all very confusing.

The author also seemed to assume the reader had a detailed knowledge of African politics with regard to the Boer War.

This lack of information and/or research mars what would otherwise have been a very good book.

Daisy Maynard, Countess of Warwick, was the original Essex girl. Married at 18 to Lord Brooke, heir to the Earl of Warwick, she lost little time in involving herself in a number of passionate affairs which led to at least three of her children being fathered by men other than her husband. For almost a decade she was the acknowledged lover of the Prince of Wales (later Edward the Seventh), heading the Marlborough House circle which reflected the Prince's own tastes of "shooting, racing and sex". Anyone who thought the Profumo scandal of the 1960's was an aberration clearly has no appreciation of the dissolute nature of the British ruling classes throughout history.

Extra-marital sex was commonplace and such affairs were tolerated provided they were conducted discretely. Daisy went too far when she told Lady Beresford that she intended to elope with her husband, the father of at least one of her children, possibly more. The hapless Beresford was hauled off by his wife and ended the relationship. Daisy was not deterred and wrote a vicious letter to Lady Beresford which the Prince of Wales in person sought to have returned. Beresford asserted himself responding to the Prince's comments by calling the heir to the throne "a blackguard" - the nineteenth century equivalent of Kenneth Tynan using a four letter word on television.

The intervention of the Prince was no accident as Daisy had become his lover too. She also fell for Joe Laycock to whom she showed a devotion which betrayed her lack of judgment about men. Her letters to Laycock can be regarded as the stuff of fiction but were all too real in a society which condemned females for having surrendered to male seduction while writing off the latter as following their natural instincts. Men were men and women were sluts.

Daisy had a social conscience admiring the work of Joseph Arch, the founder of the Agricultural Workers' Union, who became an MP. She was sympathetic to - and enthusiastic in support of - the plight of the rural poor and needy and saw nothing contradictory in holding grand upper class social occasions while advocating social reform. When Robert Blatchford wrote an article in the radical journal, The Clarion, which ended, "I deeply pity the poor rich Countess of Warwick" Daisy impetuously travelled to London to confront him personally only to come away "as one who had found a new, a real world".

That new world saw her flirting with H M Hyndman's egocentric versions of socialism, the Social Democratic Federation and the British Socialist Party, before becoming part of mainstream politics and standing as a Labour candidate against the young, handsome, Anthony Eden. Inevitably she was accused of politically seducing Ramsey McDonald from his socialist principles and the offer of her home, Easton Lodge, for use by the TUC was eventually voted down by those for whom class war was a matter of principle.

Although Daisy's lifetime straddled the Victorian era and the twentieth century her story (even if were set in a different context) remains essentially human. She was promiscuous and an out and out hypocrite, refusing to consider the divorce her husband would have granted her because it would have cost her wealth and social position. Like many contemporary "celebrities" being in the public eye was more important than life itself.

Sushila Anand's biography is outstanding. No punches are pulled (and ammunition a-plenty was available in Daisy's correspondence) and the breadth of resources are matched by assiduous research and a non judgemental approach to Daisy's life. Sushila Anand certainly understood her subject and it is sad to record that Anand died in 2007, not long before this splendid book was published. I heartily recommend the book as an excellent and illuminating read of the life and times of Daisy, Countess of Warwick. Five stars, no question.

This book is a really good read, Daisy was the original WAG, although an heiress in her own right, she used her looks and charm to get what she wanted, married a man with a title for love and who remained by her side her whole life even though she had 2 children by another man, a ten year love affair with Edward , Prince of Wales, and then fell in love with another man who by todays standards would be called a player , she had 2 children by him and remained infatuated by him all her life all thought he spurned her. This was a great insight to life in Edwardian Britain how the rich lived ,the parties the affairs the intrigue. She was an puzzle this woman as she became a socialist and would go to the meetings and really put her money where her mouth was, when trying to help the working classes, starting an agriculture school and understanding that education was the key to a better life, and was instrumental in starting the idea of free school meals as this was sometimes the only food that children from poor families would have all day. Yet at the same time she thought nothing of throwing lavish parties and staying in first class hotels while travellling around preaching the socialist dogma ! In her old age she became the patron of several animal charities.She was friends with several famous writers and politicians,and was supposed to have been very intelligent . This book is like a whos who of the 80's and 90's and interesting as a insight into social history as you see the working class changing and the war clouds of the Boer war.She was a very interesting character i was unsure if i liked her or not, as at the same time as all her good works she seemed selfish and very self centred.