The Kings' Mistresses
The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and Her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin
by Goldsmith, Elizabeth
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Apr 03 2012 | Archive Date Sep 01 2012
Perseus Books Group | PublicAffairs
Description
Marie and Hortense, however, had another lifestyle in mind altogether. Abandoning their husbands, they took to the road, using the brand new post coach service to ferry them across Europe. Hortense was a famous gambler, the women often dressed and passed as men, and their scandalous behavior became a sensation.
Elizabeth Goldsmith has written a vibrant biography of two pioneering free spirits, feminists long before the term existed, who refused to be constrained by the morals, mores, and hypocrisies of their age.
Elizabeth C. Goldsmith is a professor of French and director of the study abroad curriculum at Boston University. She has written books on literature in the age of Louis XIV, focusing on letter correspondences and women's writing. She teaches courses on seventeenth-century theater and the novel, travel writing, and historical fiction.
Advance Praise
Kirkus Reviews
"The
story of the 17th-century version of the Kardashian sisters, but with
the added touch of brains, literacy and class.... [T]he story moves along
at a swift pace.... [F]ascinating."
Publishers Weekly
"[A]n atmospheric, absorbing tale of 17th-century female media stars taking charge of their own lives."
Dr. Amanda Foreman, FRSA, author of Georgiana and A World on Fire
"A
fascinating account of two genuine rebels-seventeenth century sisters
who fought for the sisterhood, and throughout their extraordinary
adventures always gave as good as they got. The Kings' Mistresses succeeds in being both entertaining and highly instructive."
Susan Holloway Scott, author of The Countess & the King
"At
last two of history's most fascinating sisters have the book they
deserve. Rich with period detail and thoughtful research, this is
biography at its very best: the intertwined story of two women who
refused to be ruled by either husbands or kings, and dared instead to
create their own destiny."
Leslie Carroll, author of Royal Affairs
"The
bigger scandal in this fascinating double biography is not the bold
behavior of its aristocratic heroines, whose colorful lives a novelist
would envy-but the shocking treatment they endured at the hands of the
powerful men who sought to punish them for seeking their independence.
The lengths they went to bring the Mancini sisters to heel will leave
readers shocked, wishing they could turn back the hands of time to
champion these courageous survivors themselves."
Barbara Diefendorf, Professor of History, Boston University, author of Beneath The Cross
"The
Mancini sisters demanded a freedom that law and custom denied their
sex. Goldsmith shows the high price both women paid for this freedom,
while celebrating the liberated spirit with which they pursued it. The
book is a page-turner; it is also good history."
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781586488895 |
| PRICE | $26.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 288 |
