Product Description
Nineteenth century London produced a fine flowering of eccentrics and individualists. Chief among them was Harriette Wilson, whose patrons included most of the distinguished men of the day, from the Duke of Wellington to Lord Byron. She held court in a box at the opera, attended by statesmen, poets, national heroes, aristocrats, members of the beau monde, and students who hoped to be immortalised by her glance. She wrote these memoirs in middle age, when she had fallen out of favour. She advised her former lovers that for 200 she would edit them out. 'Publish and be damned!' retorted the Duke of Wellington. The result is an elegant, zestful, unrepentant memoir, which offers intimately detailed portraits of the Regency demimonde. First published in 1957.
From the Back Cover
Harriette Wilson's Memoirs These are the memoirs of the reigning courtesan of Regency London whose patrons included most of the distinguished men of her day, from the Duke of Wellington to Lord Byron. Hard-pressed for money in middle age, she sold her memoirs after offering to edit out any lovers who paid her the sum of 200 Publish and be damned! cried the Duke of Wellington. She did and she was. Edited and Introduced by Lesley Blanch, author of The Wilder Shores of Love.