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Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire | 
 enlarge | Author: Amanda Foreman
Publisher: Flamingo
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £0.52
You Save: £9.47 (95%)
New (26) Used (43) Collectible (3) from £0.52
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 2453
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.4
ISBN: 0006550169
Dewey Decimal Number: 941
EAN: 9780006550167
ASIN: 0006550169
Publication Date: June 7, 1999
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book, immediate dispatch, U.K Seller!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Georgiana Spencer was, in a sense, an 18th-century "It Girl". She came from one of England's richest and most landed families, and married into another. She was, beautiful, sensitive and extravagant. Acquainted fairly young with Charles James Fox, her move from parties to Parties led her to become the intimate of ministers and princes, and she canvassed assiduously for the Whig cause, most famously in the Westminster election of 1784. By turns she was caricatured and fawned on by the press, and she provided the inspiration for Lady Teazle in Sheridan's School For Scandal. But, luckily for her biographer, she also had weaknesses that were to taint her life. As gin gripped the masses, so gambling enthralled the aristocracy. By 1784 Georgiana owed "many, many, many thousands", and the creditors she acquired dogged her until her death, but the sterility of her marriage meant that she never came close to disclosing the magnitude of her debts. Amanda Foreman describes astutely the mess that was personal relationships for the aristocratic subculture (Georgiana and the Duke engaged for many years in a menage a trois with Lady Elizabeth Fraser, who inveigled her way into his bed and her heart). She is, by her own admission, a little in love with her subject, which can lead to occasional lapses of perspective, but generally it adds zest to a narrative built on, rather than burdened by, scholarship, that is at once accessible and learned. An impressive debut, in every sense. --David Vincent
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 An exhaustively researched yet highly accessible book January 9, 2005
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
I found this absolutely compelling; I simply couldn't put it down. I found the politcal angle paticularly absorbing; the extra juice was just an added bonus! I also loved how Foreman points the reader to the ironies which pepper Georgina's life.It's really got me hooked on 18thc social and political history. I'm lucky enough to have a history degree, but this book is so accessible you don't need one; Foreman just guides through giving you all extra info without sounding patronising. This has to be the best researched biography I've read... if only my academic reading was as fun.
A book that doesn't talk down to its readers January 28, 2000
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
I often feel that books aimed at the general reader, ie, someone like me who did not go to university, assume that we are all thickwits who can't tell the difference between good and bad writing. The one thing I loved about Georgiana is that the book has all the quality of academic history while at the same time being very entertaining. Although at times I had to concentrate really hard on a lot of unfamiliar information, I also felt I was getting the real thing. I loved this book and I am now looking for others just like it. I never had a chance to learn about history when I was younger but it seems to me that it's possible to make up for it when authors such as Amanda Foreman write books that are for everybody. Having read this book, I know that I can at least talk about women in the eighteenth century and not sound completely ignorant.
what a pleasure! March 1, 1999
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book has held me mesmerized for many days. It is not just an account of the life of the extraordinary Duchess of Devonshire but also a wonderful commentary about the time in which she lived - English politics, insights into the French Revolution from the view of Marie Antoinette (Georgiana's friend) etc. Obviously passionate about her subject Ms Foreman very seldom lets this overtake her objectivity. It it wonderfully lucid yet at the same time it is scholarly. It is on a par with, if not better than, Stella Tillyard's "Aristocrats". (And of course Charles Fox 'provides the link between the two books.)
A Brilliant Read January 18, 2000
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I adored this book. It was so alive and compelling. Georgiana felt like a best friend to me and I was really sad to reach the end of the book. Most biographies are quite dry but this one was like a portal into another world. I wish more writers would make an effort to write this way.
Engaging May 7, 2008
rach fitz (uk)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have given this review 5 stars because I think the book is well researched and an engaging read. It easily moves through the early life of the duchess (who originates in the Spencer family) and her movement through 'the ton'. The author clearly highlights the role of a women in the regency type period - feminism was unheard of and yet here we have a woman influencing politics and refusing to be constrained by her gender. The only negative comment I can make (and this is not a reflection on the book at all) is that I am not sure that I would like Georgiana very much and whilst I have sympathy for her loveless marriage, I find it hard to find empathy for a woman who lived in to such excess when many women of the era would have been grateful for a fragment of the fortune she had.
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