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My Lady Scandalous: The Amazing Life and Outrageous Times of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Royal Courtesan
A wicked turnabout on Jane Austen's oft-quoted adage - "a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" - is My Lady Scandalous, a richly raucous history that traverses the notoriously licentious British Regency era in the company of its most celebrated courtesan.
Following a simple Edinburgh girlhood, Grace Dalrymple came of age in the sin city of London, where wealthy men ruled society and women had everything to lose, starting with their reputations. As an impressionable bride of seventeen who married a man more than twice her age, Grace's remarkable beauty (likened by journalists to "a May morning") soon attracted the attentions of other men. A disastrous liaison with a consummate rake not only branded Grace as a demi-rep - a woman with half a reputation - but the scandal provoked Dr. John Eliot, her philandering husband, to pursue a divorce.
Grace became mistress of the most infamous peer in England, George James, Lord Cholmondeley, whose "secret perfections" were reputed to inspire "female enthusiasm." Cholmondeley commemorated the relationship by commissioning two works from eminent portraitist Thomas Gainsborough, first in 1778 and later in 1782, the same year Grace gave birth to a daughter, Georgiana (who may, in fact, have been the child of the Prince of Wales). Had Grace been an aristocrat, she and Cholmondeley might have had a future together, but it was not to be.
The tabloids broke the news: "Miss Dalrymple has embarked for France, and it is said parted with her noble gallant." Grace was soon to find a new protector in that nation's richest man, Philippe, Duc d'Orleans. Though Grace was ensconced as "one of the most brilliant and popular among the fashionable 'impures,'" her liaison with the duke turned perilous when Orleans fell to the Revolution's guillotine, just as she narrowly escaped with her life.
"People die, but love may not," declares author Jo Manning of her subject's romantic and historic misadventures. A connoisseur of the times, Manning ably demonstrates - through contemporary newspapers, magazines, prints, and portraits as well as Grace's posthumously published journal - how life in George III's England and Marie Antoinette's France can seem strangely familiar, especially when history turns to affairs of the heart.
Following a simple Edinburgh girlhood, Grace Dalrymple came of age in the sin city of London, where wealthy men ruled society and women had everything to lose, starting with their reputations. As an impressionable bride of seventeen who married a man more than twice her age, Grace's remarkable beauty (likened by journalists to "a May morning") soon attracted the attentions of other men. A disastrous liaison with a consummate rake not only branded Grace as a demi-rep - a woman with half a reputation - but the scandal provoked Dr. John Eliot, her philandering husband, to pursue a divorce.
Grace became mistress of the most infamous peer in England, George James, Lord Cholmondeley, whose "secret perfections" were reputed to inspire "female enthusiasm." Cholmondeley commemorated the relationship by commissioning two works from eminent portraitist Thomas Gainsborough, first in 1778 and later in 1782, the same year Grace gave birth to a daughter, Georgiana (who may, in fact, have been the child of the Prince of Wales). Had Grace been an aristocrat, she and Cholmondeley might have had a future together, but it was not to be.
The tabloids broke the news: "Miss Dalrymple has embarked for France, and it is said parted with her noble gallant." Grace was soon to find a new protector in that nation's richest man, Philippe, Duc d'Orleans. Though Grace was ensconced as "one of the most brilliant and popular among the fashionable 'impures,'" her liaison with the duke turned perilous when Orleans fell to the Revolution's guillotine, just as she narrowly escaped with her life.
"People die, but love may not," declares author Jo Manning of her subject's romantic and historic misadventures. A connoisseur of the times, Manning ably demonstrates - through contemporary newspapers, magazines, prints, and portraits as well as Grace's posthumously published journal - how life in George III's England and Marie Antoinette's France can seem strangely familiar, especially when history turns to affairs of the heart.
414 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
5 people are currently reading
477 people want to read
About the author
Jo Manning
11 books3 followersJo Manning was born in New York City and received all her schooling through undergraduate level there. In 1961, she applied to the Peace Corps where she met her husband who makes documentaries and independent feature films. Manning has degrees in English and Library Science, and was the founder and Director of the Reader�s Digest General Books Library for over twenty years.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
November 24, 2011
Dreadful, poorly written and badly organized. I could stop there I suppose, but such dreck should not even be included on a fair-to-middling shelf of historical biographies/explorations.
Granted, it seems like there was not a lot of documentation to really dig into and look at the details of Grace's life, but what little there was jumped around without clearly giving dates/context; and assumptions, suppositions and speculations abound (unwarranted in most instances, I might add... unless, perhaps, you are a writer of fictional, what passes for "regency", romances). That there wasn't much to work with successfully, explains part of the title of the book "Outrageous Times" as the book is jam-packed with side-bars, photos and expositions of sundry events and people, which might prove to be of interest for some readers. But these extensive, glorified footnotes get tiresome and boring, if not early on (with the discussion of the cousin of one of Grace's lovers who had the same name as her lover did) then by the end when numerous pages detail the book publisher of Grace's French Revolution experiences. In some chapters Grace barely even makes an appearance. The style is gossipy, and that may appeal to some people, but it does not cover up the gaps and gaffs in this book.
Granted, it seems like there was not a lot of documentation to really dig into and look at the details of Grace's life, but what little there was jumped around without clearly giving dates/context; and assumptions, suppositions and speculations abound (unwarranted in most instances, I might add... unless, perhaps, you are a writer of fictional, what passes for "regency", romances). That there wasn't much to work with successfully, explains part of the title of the book "Outrageous Times" as the book is jam-packed with side-bars, photos and expositions of sundry events and people, which might prove to be of interest for some readers. But these extensive, glorified footnotes get tiresome and boring, if not early on (with the discussion of the cousin of one of Grace's lovers who had the same name as her lover did) then by the end when numerous pages detail the book publisher of Grace's French Revolution experiences. In some chapters Grace barely even makes an appearance. The style is gossipy, and that may appeal to some people, but it does not cover up the gaps and gaffs in this book.
November 14, 2008
This was the worst biography I've ever attempted. And it shouldn't have been so hard to please me - I love spicy 18th century ladies. But this book is filled with poorly cited information, boring information, irrelevant information, and some information that's just plain wrong. Had I read the author's bio before I started the book, I probably would have avoided it altogether. This is her first non-fiction work and her prior work consists of two romance novels.
Avoid.
Avoid.
January 20, 2009
While the facts of Grace Dalrymple Elliott's life are certainly interesting and worthy of biography, the overly chatty, gossipy style this book was written in consistently annoyed me, as did the unnecessary one word commentaries (ex: "Absurd!") by the author on various things that happened to or were said about Grace. A little more objectivity would have gone a long way in increasing this book's readability.
August 1, 2022
4,25 stars - English Ebook
The antics of today's celebrities aren't a patch on some of the goings-on in late--eighteenth-century England if this book about the life and times of Georgian party-girl Elliott is anything to go by.
Married early and soon divorced (for adultery), Grace slept her way to the top, her every move gleefully documented by the scandal sheets of the day. Her only child may have been fathered by the Prince of Wales.
A liaison with the fabulously rich Duc d'Orleans landed Grace in Paris in time for the French Revolution, where she came perilously close to being guillotined.
A fascinating, organized, well-researched book. The "life and times" is more the "times" rather than the "life" of Grace Dalyrymple, which, other than her autobiography covering her experience of the French Revolution, isn't terribly well-documented.
Making up for the lack of primary resources. This book is combing the gossip papers and scandal sheets for references to her, as well as political cartoons, and fills out the arc of her life with portraits of her lovers.
Her husband, Dr. Eliot; the viscount who seduced her; the Prince Regent, who didn't miss Grace as he slept his way through London; Lord Cholomondeley, who appears to be her own real lifelong friend as well as most supportive lover; and the Duc d'Orleans, who kept Grace in style for a short time, before falling victim as did so many to the French guillotine.
It also illustrates the manners of the time and provides lots of substantive and illuminating details that bring the end of 18th century England to life.
Novelistic in tone but scholarly in scope and research, this book offers an engaging approach to historical biography that, in the end, suggests what is most 'scandalous' about Grace's life is a society that makes women almost entirely economically dependent on men, and so often leaves them with sex as their only marketable skill.
The antics of today's celebrities aren't a patch on some of the goings-on in late--eighteenth-century England if this book about the life and times of Georgian party-girl Elliott is anything to go by.
Married early and soon divorced (for adultery), Grace slept her way to the top, her every move gleefully documented by the scandal sheets of the day. Her only child may have been fathered by the Prince of Wales.
A liaison with the fabulously rich Duc d'Orleans landed Grace in Paris in time for the French Revolution, where she came perilously close to being guillotined.
A fascinating, organized, well-researched book. The "life and times" is more the "times" rather than the "life" of Grace Dalyrymple, which, other than her autobiography covering her experience of the French Revolution, isn't terribly well-documented.
Making up for the lack of primary resources. This book is combing the gossip papers and scandal sheets for references to her, as well as political cartoons, and fills out the arc of her life with portraits of her lovers.
Her husband, Dr. Eliot; the viscount who seduced her; the Prince Regent, who didn't miss Grace as he slept his way through London; Lord Cholomondeley, who appears to be her own real lifelong friend as well as most supportive lover; and the Duc d'Orleans, who kept Grace in style for a short time, before falling victim as did so many to the French guillotine.
It also illustrates the manners of the time and provides lots of substantive and illuminating details that bring the end of 18th century England to life.
Novelistic in tone but scholarly in scope and research, this book offers an engaging approach to historical biography that, in the end, suggests what is most 'scandalous' about Grace's life is a society that makes women almost entirely economically dependent on men, and so often leaves them with sex as their only marketable skill.
January 4, 2015
This book was highly disappointing. I wanted to like it, I really did, but I just couldn't. I barely managed to slog through it until the end.
The main problem was continuity. It's like the author's had no idea how to organize this book. She starts, vaguely at the beginning of Grace's life, but every time anyone or anything comes up in Grace's life she gives a whole history of the person, place, or thing (yes thing!), not just before the current point/time in the book but future as well. So throughout the book you are being jumped backwards and forwards for huge periods of time. It was incredibly disorienting, not to mention distracting. I understand that the background of a person can inform the reader about their actions in regards to Grace and give us greater insight, but you don't have to go forward in time from that point to do this. How they continue to treat Grace would unfold as you continue to tell her story. You don't have to keep jumping up & down the timeline. It's dizzying, confusing, and distracts you from the real point of the book: Grace!
The result is a book that lacks focus and is terribly confusing, when not even a basic timeline is provided as a reference point. At the end, I got the feeling that the author wants you to think of Grace as this compelling and wonderful person, but I just couldn't. Grace got lost in the shuffle of all the extraneous facts, which isn't surprising since probably only a quarter of the book is about her directly. Every time you really start learning about Grace, and get to a point where you might start to connect, you're whisked away on some tangent about the complete history of her lover, this house, men's clubs, someone's uncle, or 18th century condoms (not kidding!). The extra information is interesting enough, but it reads like a badly organized history book, not a biography. The author should have learned from Grace's example, and just told the story.
Now maybe if you're a history buff, a book with so much extra information will sound fantastic for you. In which case, go wild and enjoy. But if you're looking for a compelling biography, look elsewhere and save yourself the trouble.
The main problem was continuity. It's like the author's had no idea how to organize this book. She starts, vaguely at the beginning of Grace's life, but every time anyone or anything comes up in Grace's life she gives a whole history of the person, place, or thing (yes thing!), not just before the current point/time in the book but future as well. So throughout the book you are being jumped backwards and forwards for huge periods of time. It was incredibly disorienting, not to mention distracting. I understand that the background of a person can inform the reader about their actions in regards to Grace and give us greater insight, but you don't have to go forward in time from that point to do this. How they continue to treat Grace would unfold as you continue to tell her story. You don't have to keep jumping up & down the timeline. It's dizzying, confusing, and distracts you from the real point of the book: Grace!
The result is a book that lacks focus and is terribly confusing, when not even a basic timeline is provided as a reference point. At the end, I got the feeling that the author wants you to think of Grace as this compelling and wonderful person, but I just couldn't. Grace got lost in the shuffle of all the extraneous facts, which isn't surprising since probably only a quarter of the book is about her directly. Every time you really start learning about Grace, and get to a point where you might start to connect, you're whisked away on some tangent about the complete history of her lover, this house, men's clubs, someone's uncle, or 18th century condoms (not kidding!). The extra information is interesting enough, but it reads like a badly organized history book, not a biography. The author should have learned from Grace's example, and just told the story.
Now maybe if you're a history buff, a book with so much extra information will sound fantastic for you. In which case, go wild and enjoy. But if you're looking for a compelling biography, look elsewhere and save yourself the trouble.
May 14, 2017
Immensely frustrating book. the subject, Grace Dalrymple Elliott, is fascinating, as is the historical moment in which she lived. Manning is clearly sympathetic to her subject and does an admirable job rescuing her reputation from her previous biographers, who saw her as a "fallen woman." But the presentation, good lord. Nearly every two-page spread has at least one sidebar; often, it takes up an entire page. The information presented in these areas is usually relevant historical context or a more detailed discussion of a person/place/idea mentioned in the larger text. It's as if Manning thought it was too hard to work all this information into her book and just decided to go with 100 of these sidebars instead. The result is that it's impossible to work up any momentum while reading. You read 300 words about Grace then have to pause to read another couple hundred about something else, then must try to pick up the Grace thread again. And this happens EVERY PAGE.
Also hindering the book's readability is its organization. Manning jumps around the timeline from chapter to chapter and often abandons Grace's story to pick up another topic -- like her husband's biography -- for entire chapters at a time. I finished the book feeling like I never got a good picture of Grace's life as a whole, only bits and pieces.
Also hindering the book's readability is its organization. Manning jumps around the timeline from chapter to chapter and often abandons Grace's story to pick up another topic -- like her husband's biography -- for entire chapters at a time. I finished the book feeling like I never got a good picture of Grace's life as a whole, only bits and pieces.
April 13, 2010
This tome follows the life of Grace Dalrymple Elliot as she goes from young bride to a much-older man to famous courtesan to royalty. Along the way, the book investigates the sexual/social mores of the mid-to-late 18th Century.
The book actually rates 4 stars for the information it contains. Fascinating look at the upper echelons of British and French society in the 1700's. Really terrific photos and illustrations, including one of a condom (!) from the time period.
The writing of the book, however, barely rates a two. The author interjects herself into the book much too much, commenting saucily (and unnecessarily) on too many things. She also draws belaboured conclusions to things, often of a feminist bent.
The instance that bothered me the most was when the author drew comparisons between Grace's saving of a man during The Reign of Terror (a truly noble deed) and another woman who burned the papers a friend entrusted to her. The writer damns the second woman, even though no one died due to her actions or was even imperiled by them. It was inexplicable to me why she went after this poor soul with so much vehemence.
The book actually rates 4 stars for the information it contains. Fascinating look at the upper echelons of British and French society in the 1700's. Really terrific photos and illustrations, including one of a condom (!) from the time period.
The writing of the book, however, barely rates a two. The author interjects herself into the book much too much, commenting saucily (and unnecessarily) on too many things. She also draws belaboured conclusions to things, often of a feminist bent.
The instance that bothered me the most was when the author drew comparisons between Grace's saving of a man during The Reign of Terror (a truly noble deed) and another woman who burned the papers a friend entrusted to her. The writer damns the second woman, even though no one died due to her actions or was even imperiled by them. It was inexplicable to me why she went after this poor soul with so much vehemence.
March 1, 2012
I abandoned this book with a mere 60-some pages to go. I had such high hopes but I was coming off of Frances Osborne's "The Bolter" and Stella Tillyard's "Aristocrats" and so, expected a great deal more. I am not sure whether the author had access to enough primary source material or if she just isn't very good at pulling the reader in and really making you feel as if you know her subjects intimately. The writing style was flip, breezy, informal, silly and almost too conversational. Rather like reading a very superficial women's magazine or a textbook written for jr. high school girls. All of the little sidebar paragraphs made me feel like I was reading a "For Dummies" book. I am assuming the lack of maturity in writing skills is due to the fact that the writer is primarily experienced in romance novels. Disappointing.
February 10, 2013
I give it one star because zero is not an option. Awful. Awful..awful.
February 12, 2013
I was forced (forced I tell you) to buy the hardcover version of this (used books, I can not resist your prices), as there's no ebook version out there. (That's actually the truth for once and not some excuse I've pulled out of a hat to explain why I'm adding yet another book to my already-filled shelves.)
For those wanting immediate gratification, here's the Wikipedia link: Grace Elliott
Whether you like this author's telling of the saga of Grace Dalrymple Elliot or not depends on:
1) how much you prefer your history strictly linear
2) whether you can tolerate the author's frequent asides in parentheses, which at times are silly and/or snarky
3) whether you mind going off topic and into somewhat-related topics, and whether those topics interest you
4) whether you mind short "articles" focused on a specific, somewhat related topic mixed in with the text (like a sidebar in a magazine article)
4) whether you were expecting something more strictly academic in tone.
The tone here is chatty and gossipy - and I kind of see what the author's trying to do here - the book is a version of gossip shared over a cup of tea, discussing who's sleeping with who and getting away with what, and delving into all the salacious details. Also this is history with a huge focus on pop culture - both then and now. Be prepared to have examples from more current history (Princess Di, "Bennifer") pop up.
How much some of these things were enjoyable vs annoying - well, scroll down and read my various notes and quotes under Reading Progress. Because there is a level of annoying the book does hit for me in some places. Parts (like the "Walpole as the villain" bit, especially annoying in that it nears the "homosexual as villain" trope) reminded me of the "ew" feeling I'd get when reading a Hollywood-tawdry-gossip biography - but would I stop reading if I started one of those books? Noooo.... (I can't help it, I do like a certain amount of gossip.) And nothing in this book is on that low level - most just provokes eye rolling. And again, this isn't the kind of thing you deal with in most history books.
Despite not being at all academic in tone there are definitely a lot of great citations of source material (primary and secondary), and the book gives you the information to seek that out next. There are a geat deal of quotes, and the author makes it clear that she is quoting a source, the words aren't hers. Sources cited are given author name, title and often the date, and similar information is found in the end notes, which are chatty in themselves. (Every now and then there will be a quote without quite as much info as you'd like to track down the original. Just noting that. Doesn't happen often.)
One reason I'll be giving this more stars than I'd expected (from 3 to 4) - the author gives you important facts about Grace's published journal. You find out the correct spellings of historical figures and places, which dates are inaccurate, what the publisher was incorrect about in the parts of the book he authored, etc. In other words, the rest of the story. I plan to read that journal - but I'll keep this book handy as a reference.
Another reason for higher rating - due to the topics, the amusing sidebar articles, and random facts, I ended up discovering and downloading more free (public domain) books via this one read than many other history books I've read. Not necessarily the ones mentioned in the book, but sources I might not have found had I not gone looking for more information on the specific people mentioned.
Yet a final reason - Grace Elliott doesn't have a currently published book solely about her, besides her own Journal. Or not that I was able to find at this date. And this is a woman whose history is fascinating.
Examples of the titles of the sidebar articles:
A Glossary of Terms for Courtesans and Prostitutes, and Related Jargon
Those Coveted White Complexions...
"Criminal Conversation," the So-Very-English Civil Tort Familiarly Referred to as "Crim. Con."
Scandal: The Newspapers' and Print Shops' Stock-in-Trade
The Men's Clubs of London
Quotes:
Am liking the "author's voice" here, not something you see in this manner in history books. Could be problematic, but hey, at least Manning is up front about it. (p. 9):
Really enjoying this next aside about Bleackley, p. 20:
I've liked the choices of direct quotes from sources, even non period (p. 56):
...In other reviews it was mentioned that the book hops around a bit in its narrative. I've seen that a bit already (noting something that's ahead in the timeline), but it doesn't bother me because the author's voice in the story seems pretty well established. It's conversational, gossipy, and there are asides in parentheses. Such as (p. 59):
I don't know that we've been set up to see that Eliot was more controlling than the average husband - but again, it's very clear that the author is going to champion the cause of Grace, and frankly that's why I'm reading this. Also Grace is noted to be "pigheaded" as well, so it's not like it's all compliments.
...Manning goes on some interesting tangents - because I can not fault her for taking several pages (start, p. 67) to share the story of James Annesley, whose uncle has him kidnapped and sold into slavery. p. 69:
...Thanks to Manning's quotes, I now want to read the Tete-a-Tete gossip column from Town and Country Magazine. Or at least the essay "Keeping Up with the Bon Ton: The Tete a Tete series in The Town and Country Magazine" by Cindy McCreery. (Finding a copy looks to be the hard part - the books the essay is printed in are a tad expensive, so perhaps I can find it in a future library visit.) The magazine itself - or at least a volume of it - can be found here on Google Books. Which looks a bit difficult to read in that format.
...Random texts mentioned in Ch. 6: Bed-Hopping and Social Status (because it's the kind of thing some of us are curious about, and I may have bumped into some of these before):
"Signior Dildo" by John Wilmot (I've bumped into a LOT of citations of this one)
Fanny Hill by John Cleland
Aristotle's Masterpiece by unknown (but definitely not Aristotle, that wikipedia link has a link to entire text)
Thomas Rowlandson - there are about seven of his works (etchings) cited, all online. (Book only has one illustration.)
And a ton of period porn/medical/how to books that I'm not adding only due to being tired of stopping to type - google Nicholas Venette. Pietro Aretino, and Tommaso Piroli (illustrator).
...p. 120-121
...Page 147 - Here begins the part about the anonymously authored poem The Torpedo, A Poem to the Electric Eel. The title page has it "Addressed to Mr. John Hunter, Surgeon: and Dedicated to The Right Honorable Lord Cholmondeley." You can find a copy of it here - Google free ebook - I haven't gotten around to even looking at it because it's 21 pages, with 17 of that being the poem. I'll have to be in the right mood for that. At first I wasn't sure that Manning was right that parts were directed at Cholmondeley and not Hunter (who I've read about before) - but keeping in mind that Cholmondeley was notorious for gossip about how large his penis was - yeah, this is all about size jokes and randiness. In poetry. The bits Manning cites are enough for me at the moment.
...Here's something that has been noted in other history books that I always feel is worth reflecting on, p. 248:
...No matter where I read about it The September Massacres are always heartbreaking. I have nothing to quibble about over the way Manning describes them, because they were horrific. There were several quotes I couldn't bring myself to type - any book on the French Revolution will suffice for this. Incredibly bloody stuff. Read about the death of Princess Marie Louise to get the general idea of the bloodthirsty nature of the events. 1792 was a bad year.
...Lists of prisons that people were incarcerated in while waiting for trial/execution in the French Revolution, page 277:
...p. 284:
....Mention of the executioners, the family Sanson on p. 286 - it's not cited here, but I found (thank you Wikipedia) that you can get the book of memoirs (Memoirs of the Sansons, from private notes and documents, 1688-1847) online (free) here. From the wikipedia page: "Charles-Henri's life is heavily and rather inaccurately fictionalized in German author H.M. Mons's novel The Sword of Satan (1954)." - and I am so tempted to hunt down a copy of that (no free online copy, sadly) since it sounds like good cheesiness.
...The last few chapters about Grace's final years and what happened to her grand-daughter Georgina Cavendish-Bentinck are full of "probably's" and supposition - but then given the lack of documentation that's not much of a surprise, particularly in women's history. (Men and their heirs are usually easier for historians to track.) The publisher of Grace's journal wasn't completely helpful in documenting the facts, p. 364:
...Example of amusing endnotes, p. 402:
For those wanting immediate gratification, here's the Wikipedia link: Grace Elliott
Whether you like this author's telling of the saga of Grace Dalrymple Elliot or not depends on:
1) how much you prefer your history strictly linear
2) whether you can tolerate the author's frequent asides in parentheses, which at times are silly and/or snarky
3) whether you mind going off topic and into somewhat-related topics, and whether those topics interest you
4) whether you mind short "articles" focused on a specific, somewhat related topic mixed in with the text (like a sidebar in a magazine article)
4) whether you were expecting something more strictly academic in tone.
The tone here is chatty and gossipy - and I kind of see what the author's trying to do here - the book is a version of gossip shared over a cup of tea, discussing who's sleeping with who and getting away with what, and delving into all the salacious details. Also this is history with a huge focus on pop culture - both then and now. Be prepared to have examples from more current history (Princess Di, "Bennifer") pop up.
How much some of these things were enjoyable vs annoying - well, scroll down and read my various notes and quotes under Reading Progress. Because there is a level of annoying the book does hit for me in some places. Parts (like the "Walpole as the villain" bit, especially annoying in that it nears the "homosexual as villain" trope) reminded me of the "ew" feeling I'd get when reading a Hollywood-tawdry-gossip biography - but would I stop reading if I started one of those books? Noooo.... (I can't help it, I do like a certain amount of gossip.) And nothing in this book is on that low level - most just provokes eye rolling. And again, this isn't the kind of thing you deal with in most history books.
Despite not being at all academic in tone there are definitely a lot of great citations of source material (primary and secondary), and the book gives you the information to seek that out next. There are a geat deal of quotes, and the author makes it clear that she is quoting a source, the words aren't hers. Sources cited are given author name, title and often the date, and similar information is found in the end notes, which are chatty in themselves. (Every now and then there will be a quote without quite as much info as you'd like to track down the original. Just noting that. Doesn't happen often.)
One reason I'll be giving this more stars than I'd expected (from 3 to 4) - the author gives you important facts about Grace's published journal. You find out the correct spellings of historical figures and places, which dates are inaccurate, what the publisher was incorrect about in the parts of the book he authored, etc. In other words, the rest of the story. I plan to read that journal - but I'll keep this book handy as a reference.
Another reason for higher rating - due to the topics, the amusing sidebar articles, and random facts, I ended up discovering and downloading more free (public domain) books via this one read than many other history books I've read. Not necessarily the ones mentioned in the book, but sources I might not have found had I not gone looking for more information on the specific people mentioned.
Yet a final reason - Grace Elliott doesn't have a currently published book solely about her, besides her own Journal. Or not that I was able to find at this date. And this is a woman whose history is fascinating.
Examples of the titles of the sidebar articles:
A Glossary of Terms for Courtesans and Prostitutes, and Related Jargon
Those Coveted White Complexions...
"Criminal Conversation," the So-Very-English Civil Tort Familiarly Referred to as "Crim. Con."
Scandal: The Newspapers' and Print Shops' Stock-in-Trade
The Men's Clubs of London
Quotes:
Am liking the "author's voice" here, not something you see in this manner in history books. Could be problematic, but hey, at least Manning is up front about it. (p. 9):
"...Courtesans are fashioned by circumstance, not born, despite the charges of Grace Elliott's most serious detractor, the biographer Horace Bleackley, who included Grace in his 1909 compendium of courtesans (a work several times reprinted) entitled Ladies Fair and Frail: Sketches of the Demi-Monde During the Eighteenth Century. Bleackley asserts with great confidence:
Nature intended her to be a courtesan, and she reveled in the power and the risk and the freedom of her adventurous life.
How absurd! Bleackley is judgmental to an amazing degree. He's a typical late Victorian male, and his biased comments are outrageous to contemporary readers. He categorizes females as either good (wives, mothers) or bad (courtesans, prostitutes). What he had to say about Grace Elliott has, unfortunately, obscured the truth and has been repeated as fact for almost a hundred years."
Really enjoying this next aside about Bleackley, p. 20:
"...Lady Craven - showing not a little jealousy, perhaps, to a possible rival - upon seeing Grace at the Ranelagh pleasure gardens, described her in a catty manner as a "Glumdalclitch," the young giantess in Jonathan Swift's fantasy tale Gulliver's Travels. (Bleackley, who rarely has anything good to say about any woman he writes about, gets his digs in about Lady Craven too, calling her "clever and winsome...[but the] most wanton of wives.")Am wondering if this is the Lady Craven referred to...
I've liked the choices of direct quotes from sources, even non period (p. 56):
"The feminist scholar Lillian S. Robinson in 1978 wrote a provocative essay, "Why Marry Mr. Collins?" that's crucial to a modern reader's understanding of the reality of marriage..."I've seen that essay cited so many places - and happily it's available online (here) if you have an account on Open Library (it's free). It's in Robinson's book Sex, Class, and Culture .
...In other reviews it was mentioned that the book hops around a bit in its narrative. I've seen that a bit already (noting something that's ahead in the timeline), but it doesn't bother me because the author's voice in the story seems pretty well established. It's conversational, gossipy, and there are asides in parentheses. Such as (p. 59):
"...Granted Dr. Eliot was more controlling than most husbands, but a smart, discreet, manipulative wife could have worked around that and had him in her pocket. (Pockets, by the way, were worn under dresses and attached to a petticoat, accessible by a slit in the dress. As dresses narrowed, these pockets became too bulky, so purses, or reticules, came to serve the same purpose.) At any rate, Grace was reckless, or in love, which in effect amounted to much the same thing."Many of these asides, rather than be tucked into the text like this, are actually set into a sidebar type column. At first I thought this was odd, but then I found the facts interesting and skipped forward to read more of them at one sitting. (Here's my own aside - Eliot is apparently spelled with one or two l's. Ah for the 1700s' more mellow concept of spelling.)
I don't know that we've been set up to see that Eliot was more controlling than the average husband - but again, it's very clear that the author is going to champion the cause of Grace, and frankly that's why I'm reading this. Also Grace is noted to be "pigheaded" as well, so it's not like it's all compliments.
...Manning goes on some interesting tangents - because I can not fault her for taking several pages (start, p. 67) to share the story of James Annesley, whose uncle has him kidnapped and sold into slavery. p. 69:
"...James' curious life story inspired fiction. Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering, Tobias Smollett's Peregrine Pickle, and Charles Reade's The Wandering Heir were all based on poor James Annesley's dramatic experiences.And, according to wikipedia, also Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped.
...Thanks to Manning's quotes, I now want to read the Tete-a-Tete gossip column from Town and Country Magazine. Or at least the essay "Keeping Up with the Bon Ton: The Tete a Tete series in The Town and Country Magazine" by Cindy McCreery. (Finding a copy looks to be the hard part - the books the essay is printed in are a tad expensive, so perhaps I can find it in a future library visit.) The magazine itself - or at least a volume of it - can be found here on Google Books. Which looks a bit difficult to read in that format.
...Random texts mentioned in Ch. 6: Bed-Hopping and Social Status (because it's the kind of thing some of us are curious about, and I may have bumped into some of these before):
"Signior Dildo" by John Wilmot (I've bumped into a LOT of citations of this one)
Fanny Hill by John Cleland
Aristotle's Masterpiece by unknown (but definitely not Aristotle, that wikipedia link has a link to entire text)
Thomas Rowlandson - there are about seven of his works (etchings) cited, all online. (Book only has one illustration.)
And a ton of period porn/medical/how to books that I'm not adding only due to being tired of stopping to type - google Nicholas Venette. Pietro Aretino, and Tommaso Piroli (illustrator).
...p. 120-121
"Snuffboxes and waistcoat buttons of the most dissolute men sported lewd drawings along the lines of Rowlandson's pornographic prints. ...Painted sporting scenes on waistcoat buttons were popular with fashionable men, but these sporting scenes went beyond what was considered polite, especially in company that included women."I am now fascinated that there was such a thing as a lewd waistcoat button.
...Page 147 - Here begins the part about the anonymously authored poem The Torpedo, A Poem to the Electric Eel. The title page has it "Addressed to Mr. John Hunter, Surgeon: and Dedicated to The Right Honorable Lord Cholmondeley." You can find a copy of it here - Google free ebook - I haven't gotten around to even looking at it because it's 21 pages, with 17 of that being the poem. I'll have to be in the right mood for that. At first I wasn't sure that Manning was right that parts were directed at Cholmondeley and not Hunter (who I've read about before) - but keeping in mind that Cholmondeley was notorious for gossip about how large his penis was - yeah, this is all about size jokes and randiness. In poetry. The bits Manning cites are enough for me at the moment.
...Here's something that has been noted in other history books that I always feel is worth reflecting on, p. 248:
"Charles Dickens, in his novel of the Reign of Terror, A Tale of Two Cities, published in serial form in 1859, got it exactly right: more commoners than nobles were killed at the guillotine, perhaps as many as two-thirds to one-half more. Remember Dickens's Sydney Carton and the little seamstress? Neither of them was an aristocrat. Grace Elliot narrowly missed becoming one of these commoner victims in 1794.I remember when I first read Dickens thinking it was weird that they would bother to kill someone that wasn't French. That was before I understood that it was actually easier to be suspect because you weren't French, and thus all the more reason to get rid of you. Also you were an outsider/foreigner anyway and who was going to come to your defense? It'd have to be someone that either really cared about you personally or just had a lot of courage.
...No matter where I read about it The September Massacres are always heartbreaking. I have nothing to quibble about over the way Manning describes them, because they were horrific. There were several quotes I couldn't bring myself to type - any book on the French Revolution will suffice for this. Incredibly bloody stuff. Read about the death of Princess Marie Louise to get the general idea of the bloodthirsty nature of the events. 1792 was a bad year.
...Lists of prisons that people were incarcerated in while waiting for trial/execution in the French Revolution, page 277:
The Carmes: This former Carmelite convent on the rue Vaugirard, near the Luxembourg Gardens - now the church of Saint Joseph des Carmes - holds an ossuary of the skulls and bones of more than one hundred members of the clergy who were massacred in the gardens on September 2, 1792. ...[Even in 1794:] It was a noxious place and there were vermin everywhere. The walls, cobblestones, ceilings and stairs were still stained with the blood of the martyred clergymen, even after two years and some attempts at cleaning."
...p. 284:
"The horror of being at the mercy of these radical revolutionaries and their robotic minions, the prison jailers, is reminiscent of the Nazi concentration camps."This is actually a great comparison - but not just for the prisons and the treatment within them. I'd say it holds true for the entire system of the Terror, especially the bloody violence and lack of human empathy that seemed to run rampant.
....Mention of the executioners, the family Sanson on p. 286 - it's not cited here, but I found (thank you Wikipedia) that you can get the book of memoirs (Memoirs of the Sansons, from private notes and documents, 1688-1847) online (free) here. From the wikipedia page: "Charles-Henri's life is heavily and rather inaccurately fictionalized in German author H.M. Mons's novel The Sword of Satan (1954)." - and I am so tempted to hunt down a copy of that (no free online copy, sadly) since it sounds like good cheesiness.
...The last few chapters about Grace's final years and what happened to her grand-daughter Georgina Cavendish-Bentinck are full of "probably's" and supposition - but then given the lack of documentation that's not much of a surprise, particularly in women's history. (Men and their heirs are usually easier for historians to track.) The publisher of Grace's journal wasn't completely helpful in documenting the facts, p. 364:
"...There's a lot of confusion in what he [Richard Bentley] writes about Grace's personal life and how he came by the manuscript. His editorial comments in the prologue and epilogue to her book have misled readers and perpetuated gross inaccuracies, causing many to doubt the veracity of her narrative."
...Example of amusing endnotes, p. 402:
"...The National Archives were undergoing renovation at the time I went to Paris...
...the personnel were so unhelpful - in fact, downright snippy - that the trip was an exercise in aggravation.
...[A writer for a US news magazine said] the only conclusion he could draw, after years of encountering bad attitude, was that the government policy had to be to hire aliens only, aliens "who despised all carbon-based life forms.""
December 12, 2019
First off, it was soooooo boring. Just dreadfully dull. The other big issue for me is the fact that you come away feeling like you don't know this lady any more than when you began the book. My favorite part of this book was a small section that explained eccentric pronunciations of some names. That should tell you something.
May 16, 2017
If you like historical nonfiction this is for you. Very textbook like. I had trouble getting through it
January 7, 2023
I see a lot of people didn't like My Lady Scandalous. I was taken in by the cover, and seemed to offer a lot of good information. I wasn't disappointed at Jo Manning's book. I agree the sidelines could be daunting, but were mostly very informative. I learned something about Grace Elliott, but also some good bits about 18th century life, sex and law, social standards...not to mention a pretty helpful bit on 18th century condoms. A very well researched book, and certainly it leads to chapter 11, where Grace gets involved in the French Revolution. This is her finest hour, and I wonder if Jo could have entered on this, and built the rest of the book around it, but I understand her need to present all of Grace. If the book has a flaw, it is after chapter 13 it wanders a bit, since we don't have a lot of information about Grace in her later years. That's a pity. She's not a great figure, but certainly worth notice, as is the times and social mores of her turn as a courtesan.
I found the illustrations very good, and wish some of them could have been in color, and the book's many asides on society, the gossip newspapers of the era, Madame Tussaud's history, etc., are enjoyable. Some complain My Lady Scandalous is rambling and unfocused, but it sort of reminds me of Tristram Shandy...another rambling, shaggy dog story that is a classic. Oddly, like Grace's diary, Tristram Shandy ends abruptly.
Sometimes the pace slackens, but it's never a boring read. It's a good book for reference and browsing. The appendix on the film The Lady and the Duke makes me want to hunt it down and view it.
I found the illustrations very good, and wish some of them could have been in color, and the book's many asides on society, the gossip newspapers of the era, Madame Tussaud's history, etc., are enjoyable. Some complain My Lady Scandalous is rambling and unfocused, but it sort of reminds me of Tristram Shandy...another rambling, shaggy dog story that is a classic. Oddly, like Grace's diary, Tristram Shandy ends abruptly.
Sometimes the pace slackens, but it's never a boring read. It's a good book for reference and browsing. The appendix on the film The Lady and the Duke makes me want to hunt it down and view it.
February 18, 2018
An exciting and well-written illustration of the life and times of an intrepid woman. Find a full review at femmeliterate.
April 28, 2014
Grace Dalrymple was an incredibly fascinating woman, rising up from an early scandal to touch several monarchies, leave a fabulous memoir, and survive the French Revolution and the Terror that came after it. She was there to see the French monarchy fall first-hand, and tried to help save the king and queen. She had a child by the Prince of Wales. She railed at the Duc D'Orleans (her lover and friend) when he voted for the king of France's death.
I mean seriously, could you live a more exciting life?
I adored this book. As a frequent reader of nonfiction, I found this particular biography to be a whole different animal -- chatty, with a relaxed, very friendly writing style, and plenty of gossip. I'm quite surprised by the snarky and somewhat snobbish reviews here, b/c I think the novel did exactly what it promised to do -- gave the reader a larger view of the Georgian period, the world in which Grace operated, the other people and things that lived there, and the horror that was happening in France. The narrative dropped you right into the world, so that you felt as though you were living there yourself, and reading the local trades. This wasn't just a book about Grace, though she was obviously our heroine. This was a book about the times. And scandalous times indeed!
I found the humor in the writing to be very refreshing in a genre that can get quite stodgy, and Grace herself was a wonder. The author did an amazing job of giving an overview of the players in this story, and how they all connected. I came out the story with the mission of finding Grace Dalrymple Elliot's Journal to read, and plenty of new subjects to research. Absolutely loved. Was sorry to see it end.
I mean seriously, could you live a more exciting life?
I adored this book. As a frequent reader of nonfiction, I found this particular biography to be a whole different animal -- chatty, with a relaxed, very friendly writing style, and plenty of gossip. I'm quite surprised by the snarky and somewhat snobbish reviews here, b/c I think the novel did exactly what it promised to do -- gave the reader a larger view of the Georgian period, the world in which Grace operated, the other people and things that lived there, and the horror that was happening in France. The narrative dropped you right into the world, so that you felt as though you were living there yourself, and reading the local trades. This wasn't just a book about Grace, though she was obviously our heroine. This was a book about the times. And scandalous times indeed!
I found the humor in the writing to be very refreshing in a genre that can get quite stodgy, and Grace herself was a wonder. The author did an amazing job of giving an overview of the players in this story, and how they all connected. I came out the story with the mission of finding Grace Dalrymple Elliot's Journal to read, and plenty of new subjects to research. Absolutely loved. Was sorry to see it end.
August 4, 2016
Interesting but also not. I had to reread so many pages because I kept falling asleep and couldn't remember what I'd just read. It started out rather slow. The Introduction was a random assortment of facts about Grace, her upbringing, the definition of courtesans and prostitutes, the general life of a woman during her time period and a quick synopsis of Grace's life. Chapter One was a discussion on whether or not Grace was beautiful. Since she was a well known courtesan I'm going to figure that was a yes. Chapter Two was about her father and some poem he wrote. Only after that do we actually start with Grace and her upbringing. Throughout the entire thing there are so many random facts and comparisons between Grace and every other courtesan of the time and every respectable member of society that reading becomes rather painful. There was a whole chapter dedicated to the will of her ex-husband. What could have been a fascinating story was just completely overwhelmed by facts. I did enjoy the pictures!
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July 31, 2011When I told people I was reading about an 18th Century prostitute, I got rather a lot of confused faces, but the story of Grace Dalrymple Elliott's life is about so much more than her time as George IV's mistress.
Her ultimately disastrous marriage to the boring Dr. John Eliot taught her a lot about herself and her relationship with men; her affair with the Prince and another Lord simultaneously, which led to the birth of daughter Georgiana changed the relationship she had with the rest of her family forever; and, finally, her loyalty to the French monarchy during the Revolution led to her imprisonment and near execution in Paris in the 1790s.
All in all, this is the tale of a spectacular woman. A beautiful royal courtesan she may have been, but she was also courageous, intelligent and loyal.
And so, my love and obsession with 18th century women continues...
Her ultimately disastrous marriage to the boring Dr. John Eliot taught her a lot about herself and her relationship with men; her affair with the Prince and another Lord simultaneously, which led to the birth of daughter Georgiana changed the relationship she had with the rest of her family forever; and, finally, her loyalty to the French monarchy during the Revolution led to her imprisonment and near execution in Paris in the 1790s.
All in all, this is the tale of a spectacular woman. A beautiful royal courtesan she may have been, but she was also courageous, intelligent and loyal.
And so, my love and obsession with 18th century women continues...
June 26, 2010
This was one of the best written history books I've read in forever. Manning includes tons of information and details about the period – from types of condoms available to other hot scandals of the day to popular lit – and she does it in an incredibly easy to read way. Lots of writers would tempted to go into endless digressions – because all that extra info is interesting – but Manning cleverly includes these asides as sidebars to the main text. As for Grace herself, the woman lived in fascinating times, went around with a notorious crowd, and seemed to have an all around incredible life. Well worth the read and it nicely underscores just how boring and pedestrian today's celebrity scandals really are.
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November 4, 2008There appears to be very little source material on the life of Grace Elliott, but the author made good use of what does exist. She buttresses the somewhat thin details of Grace's life with sidebars and descriptions of the people appearing in the story and facets of life in the late 18th century. The most interesting concerned contraception and abortion in the period. The chapters dealing with Grace's experiences in France during the revolution are very interesting. The book is written in a breezy, gossipy style that I enjoyed.
July 30, 2007
Well-documented, but the book is too busy with arch asides and page long digressions to get to the real historical background. This would be a good book for someone curious about the time period but not all that knowledgable--for anyone who's familiar with the eighteenth century already, its not that useful.
December 17, 2010
Stopped reading because I felt like I was reading a tabloid from the 18th century, which makes sense because the author makes heavy use of letters and newspapers and other primary sources from the time period, but it got too much for me. I was expecting a biography, and this was more of a breathy recounting of every single escapade this courtesan was involved in.
February 28, 2012
Although I purchased this book for information on Grace, I was pleasantly surprised by the extra information I garnered regarding the Regency period. At times, all the names of all the different people drove me a little crazy, but the book was worth the read.
My only real negative? Quite a few typos and missing words.
My only real negative? Quite a few typos and missing words.
June 15, 2015
This book started out with a very relaxed/conversational tone that quickly got irritating. The author would interject slang and half phrases into her descriptions. Also, there was so much deviation into the lives of those surrounding Grace Elliott and their genealogies that I lost the sense of the biography. I couldn't finish this book.
September 18, 2009
weirdly written. i dont feel like i know a single thing about the person. I know a great deal now about the customs of the times and the literature of the day. interst material cos now I know that Cholmondeley is pronounced Chumly.
May 19, 2012
The story was interesting, but it got a bit tedious. You'll want to read every sidebar, though. You'll find a list of 18th-century slang terms for "prostitute," how to pronounce some of the crazy aristocratic names, and fascinating tidbits about everyday life.
August 31, 2007
This was a fascinating read.
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January 17, 2009I WILL get back to this one; I just happened to put it down one day and got absorbed elsewhere...but I'll be back, by cracky.
November 30, 2012
I enjoyed it. The author spent so much time flushing out the times of Grace Elliott that she forgot to make Grace a 3 dimensional person.
January 4, 2015
Not the worst biography i have read... Would have loved to had more info about grace elliott but i get the feeling there wasn't much to be had....
October 6, 2015
It only got two stars because of its subject matter. Grace Elliott deserved a lot more than this rambling, poorly organized, vaguely researched biography.
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