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Lily Price Hamersley became, with her 1888 marriage to the eighth Duke of Marlborough, the highest-ranking American peeress in England and the first American duchess in fifty years. The duke was one of three distinguished, but, alas, short-lived husbands of this beauty from Troy, New York. Her first husband, Louis Hamersley, was a patrician New Yorker who left her an affluent widow at the age of twenty-eight. Her second was the brilliant but "wicked," divorced, and socially outcast Duke of Marlborough--brother-in-law to Jennie Churchill, uncle to Winston, and father to the first husband of Consuelo Vanderbilt. Lily's third choice was an ebullient Anglo-Irish lord, William de la Poer Beresford, a horseracing enthusiast whose popularity has been likened to that of modern film stars. In the course of a surprising life, Lily knew triumph and heartbreak while proving herself a woman of self-confidence, optimism, and remarkable resilience. Lily's "three marriages, her confident ease in moving into impossibly complicated and exalted social realms, and her decades of dealing with legal complexities related to wills, estates, and trusts make her story read like a newly discovered Edith Wharton novel. The history of the fairytale years when Lily became the Duchess of Marlborough and a dear friend of Winston Churchill is immensely readable and fascinating." Eric Homberger, emeritus professor of American Studies, University of East Anglia, and author of Mrs. Astor's New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age "This entrancing portrait of a conventional American girl who made three extraordinary marriages draws on society papers and women's magazines as well as archives, court records and private papers to create a lively and vivid picture of social elites on both sides of the Atlantic during the late nineteenth century." Sally Mitchell, author of Daily Life in Victorian England and The New Girl: Girls' Culture in England, 1880-1915
'An incredible story crackling with royal passion, envy, ambition and betrayal ... Field's account of the psychological power play between Queen Anne and her confidante is surely definitive. A tour de force' Lucy Worsley Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, was as glamorous as she was controversial. Politically influential and independently powerful, she was an intimate, and then a blackmailer, of Queen Anne, accusing her of keeping lesbian favourites - including Sarah's own cousin Abigail Masham. Ophelia Field's masterly biography brings Sarah Churchill's own voice, passionate and intelligent, back to life. Here is an unforgettable portrait of a woman who cared intensely about how we would remember her - perfect for fans interested in the history behind the major motion picture starring Rachel Weisz with Olivia Colman and Emma Stone.
History has not been kind to Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, or "Sunny," as he was known. This is because, as Michael Waterhouse and Karen Wiseman reveal, it was largely written by his first wife, the "dollar princess" Consuelo Vanderbilt. Not an easy man, their marriage was indeed an unhappy one. However, he was not entirely to blame for the unhappiness of his marriage to Consuelo; in fact, it would be fair to say that he was sinned against more than sinned. His second wife, Gladys Deacon, proved far too unstable to be the love and companion of his life. Though he needed love, he never found a woman who loved him enough. In The Churchill Who Saved Blenheim, Waterhouse and Wiseman give us the life of a man who lived through a time of great change and felt the responsibility of preserving his home, Blenheim Palace, and the way of life he knew. He was a quiet, well-educated, introverted man who took his role as head of a great estate most seriously. He cared for his tenants and his servants. To those he loved, he was loyal, generous, unfailingly helpful, and courteous, and when necessary, he was also that rare and valuable thing: a critical friend. He left Blenheim in a far better state than he found it. This was his greatest achievement. And this is his story.
**The Times and Sunday Times Books of the Year 2020** **The Times Best Biography Audiobook of the Year 2021** 'Vickers gives breathing, alarming life to a woman who puzzled and thrilled her contemporaries' SUNDAY TIMES 'Best Paperbacks of 2021' 'A continuously astonishing and ultimately moving account of a unique figure, the stuff of great literature' Simon Callow, SUNDAY TIMES 'Gripping . . . jaw-dropping story, brilliantly told' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, THE TIMES 'Mr. Vickers, with his sharp eye for detail, splendidly captures the drama of Gladys's life and the amazing cast of characters she encountered' WALL STREET JOURNAL 'This biography is truly wonderful - a masterclass in storytelling' SUNDAY TIMES 'The most extraordinary, rackety life' William Boyd, DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Richly anecdotal and oddly captivating' Miranda Seymour, FINANCIAL TIMES 'At the end of the book the reader can only say, "Whew! What a story!"' Anne de Courcy, SPECTATOR 'Hugo Vickers's life of Gladys Marlborough is an extraordinary and tragic story, with special resonance today' EVENING STANDARD ******************* One of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her time, Gladys Deacon dazzled and puzzled the glittering social circles in which she moved. Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, Gladys emerged from a traumatic childhood - her father having shot her mother's lover dead when Gladys was only eleven - to captivate and inspire some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Epoque. Marcel Proust wrote of her, 'I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm.' Berenson considered marrying her, Rodin and Monet befriended her, Boldini painted her and Epstein sculpted her. She inspired love from diverse Dukes and Princes, and the interest of women such as the Comtesse Greffulhe and Gertrude Stein. In 1921, when Gladys was forty, she achieved the wish she had held since the age of fourteen to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, then freshly divorced from fellow American Consuelo Vanderbilt. Gladys's circle now included Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lytton Strachey and Winston Churchill, who described her as 'a strange, glittering being'. But life at Blenheim was not a success: when the Duke evicted her in 1933, the only remaining signs of Gladys were two sphinxes bearing her features on the west terraces and mysterious blue eyes in the grand portico. She became a recluse, and the wax injections she'd had to straighten her nose when she was 22 had by now ravaged her beauty. Gladys was to spend her last years in the psycho-geriatric ward of a mental hospital, where she was discovered by a young Hugo Vickers. Intrigued and compelled to unmask the truth of her mysterious life, Vickers visited her over the course of two years, eventually publishing Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough, a biography of her life - and his first book - in 1979, two years after Gladys's death. Forty years on, Vickers has now completely rewritten and revised his original biography, updating it with previously unavailable material and drawing on his own personal research all over Europe and America. He once asked Gladys, 'Where is Gladys Deacon?' She answered him slowly, 'Gladys Deacon? . . . She never existed.' The Sphinx is a fascinating portrait of this elusive but brilliant woman who was at the centre of a now bygone era of wealth and privilege - and a tribute to one of the brightest stars of her age.
Queen Anne (1665-1714) was not charismatic, brilliant or beautiful, but under her rule, England rose from the chaos of regicide, civil war and revolution to the cusp of global supremacy. She fought a successful overseas war against Europe's superpower and her moderation kept the crown independent of party warfare at home. This biography reveals Anne Stuart as resolute, kind and practical--a woman who surmounted personal tragedy and poor health to become a popular and effective ruler.
Sir Winston Churchill’s paternal grandmother and the mother of Randolph Churchill, the 7th Duchess of Marlborough, has been a minor figure in many works, yet hers is a fascinating story. Frances Anne Emily Vane-Tempest-Stewart’s family background, as well as her own life, is steeped in great historical names and occasions, from being the eldest daughter of Wellington’s second-in-command in the Napoleonic Wars to being a lifelong personal friend of Queen Victoria. Frances’ arrival at Blenheim Palace in 1843 as the bride of John Winston, 7th Marquess of Blandford, resulted in the great ancestral seat’s regeneration, and from there she gave loyal support not only to her husband and her younger son, Randolph, but also to her famous grandson, Winston Churchill, shaping his character, ambitions and later achievements. Alongside the influence she had over her family, her own crowning achievement was the part she played in averting the effects of the Irish potato famine of 1879, which threatened to repeat the extensive loss of life of the 1840s famine. Churchill’s Grandmama is an absorbing, remarkable biography that restores a most gracious woman to her proper place at Blenheim.
The most successful British general until the advent of Napoleon, John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, was also a successful, if devious politcian, and a commanding figure both on the continent of Europe and the English court from the time of King James II. King James' mistress was Churchill's sister until he married Queen Anne whose intimate friend, the beautiful, gifted, shrewed and difficult Sarah, was Churchill's wife.
The prime minister and Nobel Prize–winning historian begins his four-volume biography of the British statesman John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough. In the first volume of this ambitious and stunningly written biography, Sir Winston S. Churchill discusses the early career and stratospheric rise of his illustrious, seventeenth century ancestor. John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, may have been eclipsed in history by his more well-known descendant, but in his time, Marlborough was considered one of England’s foremost military and political leaders. This first installment pays particular attention to personal details of Marlborough’s life, and the important role several women played in his success—including his sister, his wife, the Duchess of Cleveland, and Queen Anne herself. Churchill breathes life into these personal connections in order to showcase Marlborough not only as a luminary figure in British history, but also to bring him to life once again in the mind of the reader. “A sustained meditation on statecraft and war by the greatest war leader of our time.” —Foreign Affairs “The greatest historical work written in our century, an inexhaustible mine of political wisdom and understanding, which should be required reading for every student of political science.” —Leo Strauss