The Duchess (Text Only)

A tale of decadence and excess, great houses and wild parties, love and sexual intrigue, this biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, casts an astonishing new light on the nobility of eighteenth-century England. Fashionable, extravagant and universally adored, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, was one of the most influential women of her day. But her flamboyant public persona hid a multitude of personal troubles: drug addiction, vast gambling debts, an unhappy ménage à trois with her husband and best friend, and a doomed affair with the future prime minister. Like her descendant, Diana, Princess of Wales, Georgiana was a vulnerable woman living the life of an icon. This utterly absorbing biography, recently made into a major film starring Keira Knightley as the Duchess of Devonshire, paints a touching portrait of a misunderstood woman. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, like her descendant, Diana, Princess fo Wales, was publicly adored but personally troubled. From her complex mňage ̉trois with her husband and best friend to her vast gambling debts; from her adoration of her children to her passionate but doomed love for Earl Grey, she was a fascinating, contradictory woman whose story still resonates today