a few 2010 NF Releases


King's Mistress, Queen's Servant: The Life and Times of Henrietta Howard
by Tracy Borman

UK Release Date:  May 6, 2010

SYNOPSIS:  Henrietta Howard, later Countess of Suffolk, was the long-term mistress and confidante of King George II. Described by Swift as a consummate courtier who packed away her 'private virtues...like cloaths in a chest', by Pope as 'so very reasonable, so unmov'd', and by the world at large as 'the Swiss' (due to her apparent neutrality), she remains as fascinating and perplexing today as she was for her contemporaries. Orphaned at the age of twelve after her mother died and her father was killed in a duel, and dragged into poverty by her brutal husband, Henrietta used her own ingenuity and determination to secure a role at the very heart of the royal court. Although renowned for her passivity and mildness, her relations with the Queen became increasingly acrimonious, and she made an enemy of Prime Minister Robert Walpole before eventually resigning her position amidst intense political scandal.As well as providing a fascinating insight into the dynamics of the Georgian court, Tracy Borman's wonderful biography reveals a woman who was far more than the mistress to the King: a dedicated patron of the arts; a lively and talented intellectual in her own right; a victim of violence and adultery; a passionate advocate for the rights of women long before the dawn of feminism. Above all, she was a woman of reason in an Age of Reason. The mark that this enigmatic and largely forgotten royal mistress left on the society and culture of early Georgian England was to resonate well beyond the confines of the court, and can still be felt today.

Pre-order at PTTP's Amazon Store!


Dancing to the Precipice:  The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era

by Caroline Moorehead

Release Date:  July 27, 2010

SYNOPSIS:  Her canvases were the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; the Great Terror; America at the time of Washington and Jefferson; Paris under the Directoire and then under Napoleon; Regency London; the battle of Waterloo; and, for the last years of her life, the Italian ducal courts. Like Saint-Simon at Versailles, Samuel Pepys during the Great Fire of London, or the Goncourt brothers in nineteenth-century France, Lucie Dillon.  A daughter of French and British nobility known in France by her married name, Lucie de la Tour du Pin was the chronicler of her age. La Rochefoucauld called her "a cultural jewel." The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire favored her for his dinner companion in Paris. Napoleon requested she attend Josephine. Her friends included Talleyrand, Madame de Sta?l, Chateaubriand, Lafayette, and the Duke of Wellington, with whom she played as a child. She witnessed firsthand the demise of the French monarchy, the wave of Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and the precipitous rise and fall of Napoleon. She spent two years as an ?migr? in the newly independent United States (on a farm in Albany) but was also a familiar of Regency London.

A shrewd, determined woman in a turbulent age of men, Lucie de la Tour du Pin watched, listened, reflected and wrote it all down, mixing politics and court intrigue, social observation and the realities of everyday existence, to offer a fascinating chronicle of her era. In this compelling biography, Caroline Moorehead illuminates the extraordinary life and remarkable achievements of this strong, witty, elegant, opinionated, and dynamic woman who survived personal tragedy, including the loss of six children, and periods of extreme danger, exile, poverty, and illness. Meticulously researched, brilliantly written, and vastly entertaining, Moorehead's chronicle of Lucie's life is an incomparable social history of her times.

Pre-order at PTTP's Amazon Store.





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6 comments:

  1. The King's Mistress sounds really good! Will keep my eye out on that one. Oh, Georges in English royalty, how I love you.

    PS- I have not received my copy of The Harlot's Progress yet. Should I have? Have you?

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  2. I am very interested in the Henrietta Howard book. I read Borman's other book, Elizabeth's Women, and really enjoyed the way she wrote.

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  3. I need to read Dancing to the Precipice!!! This one should be on our list;

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  4. I wonder why they are changing the titles on the Borman book? I hate that.. then I end up getting duplicates. This is actually the same one she had written before Elizabeth's Women.

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  5. im sort of jealous of all the amazing experiences Lucie de la Tour du Pin got to be a part of and witness! that time period is one of my favorites but id never heard of her or the book before, so thank you for sharing!

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  6. These sound like two excellent books. History books tend to overlook the contributions of women and present events from the men's point of view. It will be interesting to see how these women fit into the picture.

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