Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
The Mistress of Paris - The 19th-Century Courtesan Who Built an Empire on a Secret - cover

Sorry, the publisher does not allow users to read this book from the country from which you are connecting.

The Mistress of Paris - The 19th-Century Courtesan Who Built an Empire on a Secret

Catherine Hewitt

Publisher: Icon Books

  • 0
  • 5
  • 0

Summary

Valtesse de la Bigne was a celebrated nineteenth-century Parisian courtesan. She was painted by Manet and inspired Emile Zola, who immortalised her in his scandalous novel Nana. Her rumoured affairs with Napoleon III and the future Edward VII kept gossip columns full. 

But her glamourous existence hid a dark secret: she was no Comtesse. She was born into abject poverty, raised on a squalid Paris backstreet; the lowest of the low. Yet she transformed herself into an enchantress who possessed a small fortune, three mansions, fabulous carriages, and art the envy of connoisseurs across Europe. A consummate show-woman, she ensured that her life –  and even her death – remained shrouded in just enough mystery to keep her audience hungry for more.

Catherine Hewitt’s biography tells, for the first time ever in English, the forgotten story of a remarkable woman who, though her roots were lowly, never stopped aiming high.
Available since: 11/05/2015.

Other books that might interest you

  • Rosalind - one woman did the work three men took the glory - cover

    Rosalind - one woman did the...

    Jessica Mills

    • 0
    • 3
    • 0
    ‘Excellent’ The Times‘One of the best novels I have read this year’ Iris Costello‘A luminous, pin-sharp portrait of a true trailblazer’ Zoe Howe 
    Societies are oiled with the unpaid, unaccounted for, work of women. It is the very glue that binds us together, and yet we are blind to it; a woman’s work remains invisible. 
    Rosalind Franklin knows that to be a woman in a man’s world is to be invisible. In the 1950s science is a gentleman’s profession, and it appears after WWII that there are plenty of colleagues who want to keep it that way. 
    After being segregated at Cambridge, then ignored and put down in the workplace, she has no intention of being seen as a second-class citizen and throws everything into proving her worth. But despite her success in unlocking the very secret of life, the ultimate glory is claimed by the men she left in her wake. 
    Inspired by the true story of a woman so many tried to silence, Rosalind is a tale of hope and perseverance, love and betrayal … of real-life lessons in chemistry. 
    ‘A poignant, compelling novel that takes us into the heart and mind of Rosalind Franklin as she struggles for recognition in a man’s world’ Louisa Treger 
    ‘Loved this immersive journey into the life of a woman who changed the world’s understanding of what makes us who we are’ Emily Chung 
    ‘An engaging novel that intertwines the personal and the universal like braided strands of DNA’ Luna McNamara 
    ‘Rosalind paints a shocking and necessary portrait of institutional misogyny in mid-century science’ Nikki Marmery
    Show book
  • Sharp - The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion - cover

    Sharp - The Women Who Made an...

    Michelle Dean

    • 0
    • 1
    • 0
    A “deeply researched and uncommonly engrossing” book profiling ten trailblazing literary women, including Dorothy Parker and Joan Didion (Paris Review). 
     
    In Sharp, Michelle Dean explores the lives of ten women of vastly different backgrounds and points of view who all made a significant contribution to the cultural and intellectual history of America. These women—Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler, and Janet Malcolm—are united by what Dean calls “sharpness,” the ability to cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit. 
     
    Sharp is a vibrant depiction of the intellectual beau monde of twentieth-century New York, where gossip-filled parties gave out to literary slugging-matches in the pages of the Partisan Review or the New York Review of Books. It is also a passionate portrayal of how these women asserted themselves through their writing despite the extreme condescension of the male-dominated cultural establishment. 
     
    Mixing biography, literary criticism, and cultural history, Sharp is a celebration of this group of extraordinary women, an engaging introduction to their works, and a testament to how anyone who feels powerless can claim the mantle of writer, and, perhaps, change the world.
    Show book