DECCA: The letters of Jessica Mitford. My favorite read this year (so far)

I just finished this most amazing and EPIC book titled Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford. It is astonishing the scope of this woman's life.

Actually, if you're familiar, the scope of the entire Mitford family is remarkable. For those who haven't heard: the Mitford family, perhaps one of the most famous and infamous of last century, were the British aristocratic family of Baron Redesdale. He was the second Lord Redesdale. They had six daughters, Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica (Decca), Deborah (Debo) and one son, Tom. These children were all extraordinary individuals, the product of very eccentric, aristocratic parents, which they called "Farve" and "Muv".

Perhaps what makes the Mitford story so EPIC is that they truly represented the entire specturum of political beliefs of the 20th century. Muv, Unity and Diana were all very pro fascist, pro Hitler, pro Nazi. On the other hand, Decca was devoutly Communist. The children all came of age between the two world wars which perhaps explains their devotion to political ideologies. The first world war had left most of England with an imprint of the horrors of war and many of the upper class were pro-Fascist, primarily because of this fear of war and also their fear of the rise of communism. Fascism, before Hitler, was a political ideology that was fashionable.

If you look at the Mitford sisters, the family for that matter, you see a family that was ground zero, sort of one degree of separation to the most powerful individuals and events in the 20th century. This scope is unbelievable and Decca illustrates just one vast aspect that I was fairly unfamiliar with (still am although now I'd like to read a little more): Communism in the US.

I'll finish my little overview of the Mitfords and then talk about the book. Unity, was extremely pro-Hitler. She moved to Germany and was photographed in the world press often saluting Hitler or making anti-semetic or pro-Nazi remarks. It has been alluded that she was in love with Hitler and he certainly was attracted to Unity, who represented the ultimate Aryan idealyic female.


Unity's sister, Diana, was thought to be the most beautiful woman of her time. She married early into the aristocratic and extremely wealthy Guinness family. Diana and her husband, Brian, started the fashionable group that became known as "Bright Young Things." After a few years of marriage, however, Diana met and fell in love with well-known pro-fascism leader in the UK, Sir Oswald Mosley. Her subsequent divorce from Guinness scandalized society as well as a lengthy affair she had with Mosley, before they finally married. Diana and Unity often times were both photographed with Hitler in German and Muv became quite fond of the Fuhrer, as well. (Unity and Diana at left, Tom and Diana at below left)


On the day that WWII began, Unity shot herself in the head in a park in Germany, however, the wound was not fatal. Hitler eventually had her transported out of Germany back to her family. She was seriously impaired as a result of the gunshot and died several years later from complications.

Diana (at right) and her husband, Sir Oswald Mosley, were imprisoned most of the time during WWII because of their political affiliations with fascists and Hitler.

Decca, on the other hand scandalized society when she eloped, at the age of 19, with the equally young aristocratic, Esmond Romilly (see photo below), who was the nephew of Winston Churchill. Both went to Spain to help fight the civil war and were both passionate about Communism. They eventually moved to the US. At the outbreak of WWII Romilly joined the British military and was stationed in the UK and Decca stayed in the US with their child, Constancia. Esmond was shot down shortly thereafter leaving a very young widow and baby in a distant land.

Two other sisters were also to become equally as notable as Unity, Diana and Decca just not as scandalous. Nancy (at right), the oldest, went on to become a very respected and prolific writer. The youngest daughter, Debo, married Andrew Cavendish, (their wedding photo below) and upon the death of his brother and wife, Kathleen Kennedy (JFK's sister), succeeded as the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, inheriting perhaps one of the most beautiful private homes in the world, Chatsworth. Nancy and Debo were for the most part a-political. Or rather, they didn't represent the polarizing political opposites of their sisters and parents.

Tom died in the war. Pamela lived a long life but was perhaps the least famous of the siblings, although eccentric in her own unique way. Following a lengthy marriage to scientist Derek Jackson, she was rumored to prefer relationships with women for the rest of her life.

Interestingly, all of the sisters except for Pamela, became published and respected writers at varying stages of their later lives, although Nancy and Decca were perhaps the most noted.

I have read several books on the family, including my favorite book from 2008 with The Letters of the Mitford Sisters. I think having that background made reading Decca much easier. This is a large book and very complex. You might expect that description to mean "boring". Not at all. I was riveted to this book the entire time that it took to read. I usually am a very quick reader but this book took me a couple of weeks to complete. I truly would become immersed in it.

All of these sisters are remarkable, strong and unique woman, however, I have to say the Decca was truly the most compelling. To think that she left her family and eloped with her young husband, with the British navy following them and threatening her return. She refused to comply with her families request that she return home (made with cooperation of the British government). She and her new husband were in Spain reporting the civil war. She then moved to the US with her husband and found herself a very young widow in a foreign country. You would have expected that she immediately would have returned to the safety of the family fold.

She so despised her families political affiliations that she loathed the idea of returning home. And she made the very brave decision to forge a new life for herself and her young daughter in the US. She was passionate about one thing though: Communism and the abuse of the downtrodden in the world. This was a universal theme that ran through her long life. All of the girls tended to be attracted to very strong men, or as Muv once said, "Why do all my children fall in love with dictators" (thanks for the quote, Eddie Pattillo).

Each of these women were remarkably strong individuals in their own right but it seems the overwhelming tyranny of Lord Redesdale perhaps instilled in each of them a passionate rebellious streak and an affinity for men who were similar to their father.

Decca, like all of her sisters, received no formal education (they were all very well read however). She immediately determined as a new widow that she would need to acquire a skill. And so she went to typing school. She found work eventually with US government in DC. Eventually she relocated with her daughter, Constancia, to San Francisco, and was followed there by her suitor, the man who would become her second husband, Robert Treuhaft. He was a union attorney and, like Decca, was passionate about communism. They both joined the Communist Party and were subject to the McCarthy red scare hearings in the 50s.

Jessica and Robert also had a son, Benjamin. Nearing age 40, Decca started a period of introspection which was also marked with a return visit to her home of England after almost a twenty year absence. At the same time, Robert and Jessica both started to become disillusioned with the Communist Party, although not with communism itself. They quit the party, which for most of Decca's adult life had provided her with a full-time purpose.

She wrote a memoir which became quite famous. It was titled, Hons and Rebels (originally printed in US as Daughters and Rebels). This began the career which she became most notable for: as a journalist and writer.

Even though she turned to writing she remained a staunch advocate and defender of human rights, primarily black rights. She was heavily involved throughout the segregation battles in the South. Her husband, Bob, fought on behalf of many black people and communists who were jailed unfairly due to racism or the red scare. His role as a union lawyer caused him to be dubbed by McCarthy-ites as one of the most dangerous attorneys in the San Francisco bay area.

One of Treuhafts pet peeves was the funeral industry. This interest led Jessica to write her most famous book, The American Way of Death, which exposed the racket of the US funeral industry. It remains perhaps one of the most influential books of last century in terms of its powerful ability to transform an industry.

She wrote several other books, taught at several universities, wrote magazine and news articles and continued to fight for race issues throughout her life. She died in 1996.

This book, Decca, illustrates just how remarkable an individual Jessica Mitford was. Her most marked characteristics were her sense of humor, her fearlessness and her passionate belief in her principles. She became known as a muckraker and is perhaps the most famous and successful muckraker of all times. She has yet to have been eclipsed by anyone in this role.

I just cannot recommend this book enough. You will not believe the huge network of friends, colleagues and enemies (or as she called them "frenemies") that she developed. She was at times a very hard character and I suspect could be was quite a terrifying force if she were against you. She didn't seem to suffer fools gladly, one might say.

But she was always remained true to her families and friends, despite rather spectacular disagreements and feuds. Particularly between the sisters. Diana and Decca remained diametrically opposed politically and were estranged throughout the rest of their lives. Debo emerges as the familial leader (photo circa 1993, Jessica, Debo and Pamela, the only living sisters).

I read a couple of months ago, Pen Portraits, by Diana Mosley, which is a series of essays or profiles of several of the eccentric English characters she knew during her lifetime. It was a wonderful read as well.

I strongly suggest that you read The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters as well as an excellent biography, The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell.


You can order copies of Sisters at our online website: www.jmvintage.com. Just click here.

Next up in my Mitford reading will be Nancy's book of letters, followed by the collection of letters between Nancy and her good friend, Evelyn Waugh.



The Mitfords are another one of my little obsessions, like courtesans. I think anyone will see why.

Beautiful wonderful reading--My favorite reads of 2008

So, I guess my favorite thing in the world (besides food, music, theater, etc) is reading. I am a voracious reader, primarily because I have insomnia. I also happen to be a book seller. I just love books. I love the smell of them. I love the feel of them. I cannot own too many books.

I like reading just about anything (fiction, nonfiction, etc). Which I'll get into in a later blog. Fellow readers and book lovers out there who read my blog page, I hope I'll hear from you! We are kindred spirits.

So here's a list of my favorite books that I read for 2008:

1 The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters
edited by Charlotte Mosley (Nonfiction)

The Mitford Sisters (Nancy Mitford; Unity Mitford; Diana Mitford Guinness Mosley; Jessica Mitford; Pamela Mitford; Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire) were literally one degree of separation from every major political and world figure and event of the 20th century. This book is a collection of the correspondence between the sisters and is a brilliant, utterly compelling look at last century.

2 The Uncommon Reader
by Alan Bennett, (Fiction)

This was simply a marvelous book. The novel is about Queen Elizabeth II and her discovery of books and reading. At first she starts out with lightweight stuff but by books end she is reading Proust, Turgenev, Trolloppe.

As she discovers the delights of reading at the age of 70 she begins to lament that she “felt there was a good deal she had missed"...“She had been reading one of the several lives of Sylvia Plath and was actually quite happy to have missed most of that, but reading the memoirs of Lauren Bacall, she could not help feeling that Ms. Bacall had had a much better bite at the carrot and, slightly to her surprise, found herself envying her for it.”

She regrets all the opportunities she’s missed to get to know writers she has met, like T. S. Eliot, Philip Larkin. And she regrets that she’s come to reading so late in life and sets about making up for lost time. Which eventually begins to take a toll on her professional life and all of the palace guard become up in arms.

This is a book lovers book. This is a reader lovers read. This is a royal family devotee's dream. This is a perfect book. I'll quote The New York Times reviewer, MICHIKO KAKUTANI, who summed up the book more eloquently in October 2007 (you can read the review: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/books/30kaku.html):

"In recounting this story of a ruler who becomes a reader, a monarch who’d rather write than reign, Mr. Bennett has written a captivating fairy tale. It’s a tale that’s as charming as the old Gregory Peck-Audrey Hepburn movie “Roman Holiday,” and as keenly observed as Stephen Frears’s award-winning movie “The Queen” — a tale that showcases its author’s customary élan and keen but humane wit."

3 Mississippi Sissy

Kevin Sessums (Memoirs)

Kevin Sessums has served as executive editor of Interview and as a contributing editor of both Vanity Fair and Allure. This astonishing autobiography was simply mesmerizing. It is the story of a young gay-self-aware boy who grows up in Forrest, Mississippi, and who is orphaned at an early age, following the death of his father in a car accident when Sessums was seven and a year later when his mother dies of cancer. He is raised by his grandparents and is blessed with a remarkably open-minded Southern grandmother who is willing to call him Arlene, in honor of television personality Arlene Francis and allows him to indulge in his fixation with role models, Dusty Springfield and Audrey Hepburn. His sixth-grade teacher allows his book report to be on Jacqueline Susann's best-selling Valley of the Dolls. That is just the beginning of a remarkable life of trials and tribulations of a young boy growing up in the South who is in every way a sissy. As Sessums grows up he becomes a part of the theater and literary community eventually befriending Eudora Welty, among other writers and journalist.

My review of this book on Amazon:
"Astonishing. What can I say. As a gay boy who grew up a sissy in the South, I completely identified with the alienation that Sessums felt. But the ability of this boy/man to transcend the most awful of setbacks early in life is without a doubt one of the more inspiring stories I've ever read. I finished this book over three months ago and I am still haunted and bewitched by this book. The women in this book are full of such strength. The author's mother, grandmother, his maid Matty Mae, his Aunt Lola. A poignant portrayal of author Eudora Welty who along with his mentor Frank Harris, groomed this author to write an autobiography that is absolutely perfect. Run to the bookstore. BUY this book. 100 stars out ten (sorry to digress to such cliche's it's the only way to express sufficiently my enthusiasm for this book). I guffawed and cried my way through this brilliant book."

4 Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine
by Steven Rinella (Nonfiction)
I was utterly shocked that I relished reading this book so much. Oh, the haute cuisine, was a given that I would enjoy. Rinella is a remarkable writer. The book is full of humor and occasional sadness/melancholy. But it is always compelling. I am not a hunter nor do I really support hunting. After reading this book I will have to rethink my strict liberal perspective about hunting. Although it does graphically discuss killing it was never gratuitous and surprisingly didn't ever upset or repulse me.

The book is also remarkable in the historical perspectives that Rinella brings to both haute cuisine, wild game hunting, and the various locales that he visits. Although the story occurs over a one year period and the author's scavenging is restricted to the US, Rinella weaves in his other global travels. I thoroughly enjoyed Julie & Julia by Julie Powell which was in my top 3 favorite books of 2007. Powells' book had a very similar "mission" (Julie Powell sets out in one-year to cook all of the recipes in Julia Childs' Mastering the Art of French Cooking). Rinella commits himself to spending one-year gathering the ingredients he needs to cook 45-50 recipes from Auguste Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire for a three-day event.

The interesting thing about Rinella's book is that most of the recipes require main ingredients that you can't buy. The author is a hunter and fisherman who has spent most of his life cooking and eating only food that he has "scavenged" from Mother Nature. But Escoffier's ingredients frequently challenge Rinella's expert gathering skills (as in squab, which is a baby pigeon). I suspect some people will object to this book for political correctness, but I hope they aren't so narrow-minded that they cannot give this book a try. The author is such a talented writer and story-teller and everyone should benefit from this profoundly great book.

5 In Patagonia

by Bruce Chatwin (Travel Memoirs)
This book is really a classic in travel memoirs. Chatwin travels to Patagonia, at the tip of South America, in 1974 to see a region that he becomes captivated with when he goes to interview 93-year-old architect and designer Eileen Gray in her Paris salon and notices a map of Patagaonia that she has painted. He travels the entire region for six months. The book was published in 1977 and is a series of vignettes/essays about characters he met and places that he visited. As I understand it, after the book's publication, there was some question whether conversations that the author has in the book actually happened. If that is the case, then this is still fantastic writing of fiction. He has a very spare style of writing but the characters he portrays are so richly finely drawn. At times I it when I was reading this that he created the genre "magical realism" before there was such a thing. This was such a satisfying read.

6 Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You
by Peter Cameron (Fiction)

This was a surprising and fun coming-of-age novel. Here's the Publisher Weekly's review:
"James Sveck, the 18-year-old protagonist of Cameron's (The City of Your Final Destination) first novel for young adults, is a precocious, lonely and confused Manhattanite who believes he would be happier buying a house in Kansas surrounded by a sleeping porch than entering Brown University as planned and being surrounded by his peers. “I don't like people in general and people my age in particular,” he explains, demonstrating his obsessive concern with language, “and people my age are the ones who go to college…. I'm not a sociopath or a freak (although I don't suppose people who are sociopaths or freaks self-identify as such); I just don't enjoy being with people." He claims people “rarely say anything interesting to each other,” but his own observations are fresh and incisive as he reports on his exchanges at home and at work. As the novel opens, in July 2003, James's cynical older sister is having an affair with a married professor of language theory; his mother ditches her third husband on their Las Vegas honeymoon after he steals her credit cards to gamble; his high-powered father asks if he's gay; and James is stuck working at his mother's art gallery, which has mounted an exhibit by an artist with no name, of garbage cans decoupaged with pages torn out of the Bible, Koran and Torah. James's elaborate daily entries interlace with a series of flashbacks to gradually reveal the recent panic attack that has landed him in psychotherapy. Descriptions of these sessions offer not only more fodder for James's sardonic critiques of a self-indulgent society, but also an achingly tender portrait of a devastatingly alienated young man. A single reference yields something of an explanation: James saw, at close range, the planes crash into the Twin Towers. The closest he come to commenting is to turn to a story about a woman whose disappearance after 9/11 went unnoticed for a month: “[It] didn't make me sad. I thought it was beautiful. To die like that… to sink without disturbing the surface of the water.” With its off-balance marriage of the comedic and the deeply painful, its sympathetic embrace of its characters and its hard-won hope, this smart and elegantly written novel merits a wide readership."

7 The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier
T.E. Carhart (Nonfiction)

This was the most enchanting book. It is about a writer, Thad Cathcart, who is living in Paris who falls in love with a piano shop where old pianos are restored and sold. In discovering the shop, the writer rediscovers his old abandoned passion for piano playing and begins a quest to discover everything there is to know about pianos. Set in Paris, it is an interesting and charming story of daily Parisian life with eccentric and charming characters. It was also fascinating to learn so many things about the piano. If you love music you'll love this book. But anyone would love this book. It's passion for music and pianos and the city of Paris are wonderful. It is really a compilation of vignettes or essays of different characters or events in the author's quest.

This is a sublime book.

8 When You Are Engulfed In Flames
by David Sedaris (Nonfiction)

David Sedaris is absolutely perfect. And this book was not a disappointment. As are all of Sedaris's books this is a series of autobiographical essays. This author consistently makes me guffaw with every one of his books and this was no less.

9 Faith for Beginners: A Novel
by Aaron Hamburger

(don't you love the photo of the cute dude floating in the water reading a book....now that is heaven in every sense: cute dude, floating in water, reading a book). Here's another novel that suprised me. The Publisher Weekly review which I concur with is as follows:
"A woman hopes a family trip to Israel will help her reclaim her confused, rebellious son in Hamburger's entertaining, irreverent first novel (after the collection The View from Stalin's Head).

Jeremy's been at NYU for five years, but he's still just a junior, and Helen Michaelson, 58, thinks he might have a much-needed spiritual awakening on the 'Michigan Miracle 2000' tour. But while Jeremy's more interested in cruising Jerusalem's gay parks, Helen herself is primed for revelation, as she finds that her connection to Judaism and her family is more complicated than she'd thought. Hamburger has an exacting eye for mundane detail and suburban conventions, and in Jeremy he's created the classic green-haired, pierced college student ranting about social injustice. But beneath Jeremy's sarcastic, moralizing banter, there's a convincing critique of Americans' way of being in the world. In Israel in 2000, the Michaelsons are like Pixar creations trapped in a movie filmed in Super 8—the Middle East may be fraught with political tension, but their biggest problem is the heat outside their air-conditioned bus. Hamburger goes further than witty satire, though, and when the plot takes a dark turn he demonstrates that he's capable of taking on global issues, even if his characters aren't."

10 (tie) What We Lost
by Dale Peck (Autobiography)

I'm a real fan of Dale Peck. This is his fourth book and it is a memoir. Here's The Independent's book critic, Martin Fletcher's, review of why this is just a phenomenal book:

"Dale Peck has a reputation for cutting literary throats with the ruthlessness of a fox in a chicken-run. He ruffled feathers with his first novel, the middle-finger waving Fucking MartinMartin and John in America - and has gone on to sharpen his teeth as a critic for the New Republic. There he described Rick Moody as "the worst writer of his generation" and continued the turkey-shoot at Faulkner's "incomprehensible ramblings", Nabokov's "sterile inventions", and the "stupid - just plain stupid - tomes of DeLillo".

"I am extremely savage," says Peck the Critic amid the blood and feathers. To which the bruised and battered writer Stanley Crouch replies, "Dale Peck is a troubled queen". Boys, boys!

The eye-gouging and self-absorption of the American urban literary scene is a far cry from the peaceful pastoral nostalgia that makes up much of Peck's "story of my father's childhood", What We Lost. The hatchet jobs here are mostly of axe against wood during fence-post maintenance and other rural activities on a dairy farm in Greenville, upstate New York, in the mid-1950s.

Dale Peck's father grew up in a one-room house in Long Island with seven brothers and sisters, a violent mother: "thick and squat as a tree trunk shorn of its canopy by a bolt of lightning", and an alcoholic father addicted to cough medicine. When Dale senior was 12, his own father, addled with drink and remorse, kidnapped him and deposited him with his uncle Wallace on his farm. Here "the fluid sunlight pulses through the trees like liquid amber" and the severe routine of farm work forges moral strength and purpose in the boy.

He discovers simpler values, an empathy with the land, and the power of silence and reflection that scrub clean the wounds of abuse. Inexplicably, when his mother arrives to reclaim him after a year and a half, he returns to the brutalities of his family life. Then one night, after sitting for hours outside bars waiting to carry his drunken father home, something snaps and he beats his father almost to death in a rage of hatred, shame and loss.

It's a powerful, shocking scene of expiation; but perhaps the most resonant and effective writing comes in the second part of the book. Dale Peck junior, the writer, makes an appearance with his father when they revisit the farm 40 years later. It's narrated from the point of view of a girl who makes them lunch. Peck senior's gentle, flirtatious paternalism and wistful enthusiasm for the simple routines of good country people is hopelessly sentimental. Both Pecks perceive missed opportunities that were never sustainable, and are left with the nebulous sadness of a life denied to them.

In this beautifully crafted memoir, Dale Peck puts the pieces of his father's broken past together. Memory and imagination form a narrative bridge between father and son, and something good and strong and lasting is created from breakdown and violence."

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/what-we-lost-by-dale-peck-566483.html

10 (tie) The Distance Between Us: A Novel
by Bart Yates
This is another author who I'm a big fan of. Here's Publisher's Weekly's review:

"In the absorbing latest from Yates (Leave Myself Behind), an Illinois piano teacher whose virtuoso career ended prematurely attempts to reconnect with her family after years of anguish and loss. Quirky, intimidating septuagenarian Hester Parker tells her story in retrospect. Early in her marriage, she derives pleasure from the music of her violinist husband, Arthur Donovan, and her two sons, Jeremy and Paul, both accomplished musicians. But despite an outstanding intellect, daughter Caitlin fails to inherit the family genius and suffers the plight of an outsider. A tragedy proves to have more consequences than meet the eye, and Hester's marriage dissolves, leaving her alone in her imposing Victorian home. Cut to the present, when quiet college student Alex rents her upstairs apartment, the two develop an attachment that helps both come to terms with their plights, yet threatens what Hester holds most dear. Yates's family melodrama brims with quiet intensity."

As I look back at all of the choices there seems to be a recurring theme of people in major life transitions, which are at times violent, shocking, emotional, sometimes even provocative. Which is strange because that is exactly where I am at in my own life: a time of major transition. Interesting observation (for me I suppose). I hope this sentence isn't offputing for anyone because each and every one of these books is beautiful and uplifting in their own unique way. But they are complicated stories of complicated characters, sometimes real sometimes not. But all of the books have a classic "Odyssey" theme. Please try!

Happy Reading! Please let me hear from you. You can comment on this entry (see below "Comments") or sign up as a follower of my blog.

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DANGEROUS BEAUTY 1998 movie about Veronica Franco -- 16th century courtesan

This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It also started a fascination with courtesans for me. The movie and its star, Catherine McCormack, are exquisitely beautiful.

Click here to see a clip of the movie Dangerous Beauty (it is almost 10 minutes so you might want to wait and finish reading this post before you jump to the youtube video).

The film is the true story of Veronica Franco, a poet and courtesan who lived in Venice in the 16th century. This video clip (it is not too much of a spoiler) really illustrates what initially caught my interest in courtesans when I first saw it in 1998 (for the first time of many). I was intrigued that courtesans, while reviled by general society, were the only women who were allowed to become educated. After I saw this
movie I started reading about courtesans in history.







This movie is a must see....and if you get hooked, as I did, about the subject of courtesans, then next I would recommend reading The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues by Susan Griffith.



This book really introduces the subject of courtesans throughout history and hooked me even more. Courtesans, in many ways, paved the way for women's rights and feminism. For the most part, courtesans were autonomous to themselves, similar to men. Courtesans could study, they could become educated....these qualities were what their patrons desired. In history (as you'll see in this movie) wives were simply baby machines and that was their only purpose. Courtesans were not only lovers but they were companions who stimulated men's minds and penises. These women could acquire great wealth and could own their own homes, which until fairly recently in history, wives/chattel could not do. These women had power throughout history when women in general had none.

The dust jacket notes from the book of courtesans read:
"While they charmed some of Europe's most illustrious men, honing their social skills as well as their sexual ones, the great courtesans gained riches, power, education, and sexual feedom in a time when other women were denied all of these. From Imperial of fifteenth-century Rome, who personified the Renaissance ideal of beauty Mme. de Pompadour, the arbiter of all things fashionable in eighteenth-century Paris and Versailles; Liane de Pougy, known in France during the Belle epoque as 'Our National Courtesan'; to Sarah Bernhardt, who following in her mother's footsteps, supported herself in her early career with a second profession,The Book of the Courtesans tells the life stories and intricacies of the lavish lifestyles of these women. Unlike their geisha counterparts, courtesans neither lived in brothels nor bent their wills to suit their suitors. They were stongwilled, autonomous,and plucky."

With the exception of Venice, Paris was perhaps the greatest courtesan capital in history. Many courtesans became maitresse-en-titre ("mistress to the king") and ostensibly ruled nations. In the 17th and 18th centuries the mistress to the king was an official court role and she ruled second only to the queen. The more I've read, the more obsessed I've become with courtesans. They used their sexuality to achieve ultimate power......and while this might be anathema to a modern women or a true feminist one must admire and have general awe for these women, who really blazed the way the for liberation of all woman-kind. They used the only power they had available at the time to achieve their own personal and financial autonomy.

The next book I read was The Courtesans: The Demi-Monde in the 18th Century, by Joanne Richardson. This gives a wonderful introduction to the great French courtesans:
"In Second Empire Paris there were a dozen courtesans who were generally known as la garde: they were the queens of their profession, the women whom visiting princes considered it essential to see. They were the women who encrusted their bathroom taps with jewels, built palaces in the Champs Elysees, fought duels in the Bois de Boulogne. They scandalised society, and influenced the Press and even politics. They also, of course, ensnared the husbands and lovers of the most beautiful women in Paris. The great courtesans could, it seemed, do anything - this was their golden age. Joanna Richardson now presents her own version of la garde: twelve of the most distinguished courtesans of nineteenth century France. Some of them were not French by birth, but all of them were, at some time, established in Paris. Their careers were part of French social history in the days of the Bourgeois Monarchy and the Second Empire. Some of them simply entertained the Parisian of the time, but they are still worth recalling as social phenomena: they gave a diamante sparkle to the art of living. Others have earned - and the word is deliberate - immortality. Had it not been for Blanche d'Antigny, Nana might not have crystallised in the mind of Zola. Had it not been for la Presidente, posterity would have lost much of the splendour of Les Fleurs du mal-for Apollonie Sabatier, who loved Baudelaire, and was loved by him, inspired some of the greatest poems of the nineteenth or any century. The courtesans raise social and moral and even political problems - but they also invite the question: is it merely coincidence that the age of the courtesan should have been a magnificent age for the arts? The courtesans included are: Blanche d'Antigny; La Barucci; Cora Pearl; Esther Guimond; La Paiva aka Mme Villoing/Mme la Marquise de Paiva/Countess Henckel von Donnersmarck; Mademoiselle Maximum; Marguerite Bellanger aka Mme Kulbach; Caroline Letessier; Alic Ozy; La Dame aux Camelias aka Marie Duplessis/Mme la Comtesse de Perregaux; La Presidente aka Apollonie Sabatier; Mogador aka Mm la Comtesse de Chabrillan.

From there you can read about the earlier great French courtesans who ruled France (literally) such as Madame Pompadour and Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan (they ruled two of the King Louis).

Then, one must become familiar with the great British courtesans.....Nell Gwynn is the most colorful of all (at right)--more on her a little later in this post.






The 2001 movie musical, Moulin Rouge, by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and hottie Ewan McGreggor, is a wonderful depiction of the last great age of French courtesans in 19th century Paris. It is the story of a dancer/courtesan (Kidman) who falls in love with a poor poet/writer (McGreggor).

Another one of my favorite movies of all times, and perhaps one of the best movies about a courtesan is the brilliant Vincente Minelli musical film, Gigi, starring Leslie Caron and the exquisitely beautiful man, Louis Jordan. There are many interesting parallels to the young Gigi and the young Veronica in the film Dangerous Beauty who were both being groomed by their families for a life as a courtesan. The movie Gigi was based upon the play by Collette. A little known fact: Collette discovered an unknown beauty named Audrey Hepburn and put her in the title role.




There are several other books that are comprehensive tomes on the subject of courtesans:

• Courtesans: Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century
  by Katie Hickman, (2003)
• Elegant Wits And Grand Horizontals by Cornelia Otis Skinner, (1962)
• Fille De Joie: The book of Courtesans, Sporting Girls, Ladies of the Evening, Madams, a Few Occasionals & Some Royal Favorites, Anon, (1967)
• Grandes Horizontales: The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-Century Courtesans by Virginia Rounding, (2003).

Perhaps the most interesting courtesan in history, besides Veronica Franco, is Liane de Pougy. She went on to become a princess. She wrote a fascinating memoir titled My Blue Notebooks. She was perhaps the most beautiful and notorious of all the last great courtesans. Originally a Folies Bergères dancer she exhibits one of the recurring traits among French and British courtesans. They typically started as actresses/singers/dancers and became great courtesans (Another reason why Moulin Rouge is a great film to learn about courtesans is because it illustrates this very well: Nicole Kidman's character, Satine, is the beautiful dancer at the Moulin Rouge).

Sometimes courtesans became actresses after their career as a courtesan, as is the case with the legendary Sarah Bernhard. Another interesting example was Lola Montez who ended her days in the US doing some acting. She initially came to "courtesanary" (this is a term I've coined=the art and practice of being a courtesan) as a dancer but she is probably best known as the undoing of Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria (his mad genius created several architectural masterpieces, most notably Neuschwanstein Castle). There is a very fascinating biography of her that I highly recommend, titled The Uncrowned Queen: Life of Lola Montez by Ishbel Ross (1972).

Another feature of courtesans in history is that they were often times muses for artists, musicians, composers and writers. Marie Duplessis, a French courtesan from the 19th century, is perhaps the best example. She inspired Alexander Dumas' La Dame aux Camélias which was subsequently the inspiration for Verdi's opera La Traviata. She was also muse to composer Franz Liszt (she shared this distinction also with Lola Montez). Courtesans were often the queens of "culture" in their time, whose salons hosted the greatest artists, intellectuals and political figures, inspiring books, plays, poetry and music. Duplessis is one such example.

Famous courtesans in history typically were inspirational muses because of their great beauty. However, in many cases, these beauties created beautiful things themselves. Perhaps the best illustration of this is Madame Pompadour who was really the sun of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Responsible for the creation of Sèvres, the porcelain manufacture, Pompadour was really the architect of many of the beautiful things that are associated with Louix XIV. And, like Duplessis, she was the doyenne for art, culture, literature, design for her age. The very best book on Madame Pompadour, in my opinion, is Nancy Mitford's eponymous classic, Madame de Pompadour, which she wrote in 1954. There have been a number of other good Pompadour books written since Mitford's, though. And this is a subject that you cannot read enough on (courtesans and Pompadour), if you ask my opinion.


Another curious theme to observe when researching courtesans through history is the way they transitioned from "courtesanary" when they were no longer able to stay in the profession, because of age, ill-health or the death of the king (as was the case for poor Diane de Poitiers, mistresse-en-titre to King Henry II of France, who was booted out immediately by his queen consort Catherine de Medici following the king's untimely demise in a freak jousting accident). Many times these great women were very shrewd businessman who invested and multiplied their wealth and lived out life in great opulence, long after their days in the sun. Pompadour herself remained the official mistresse-en-titre long after she stopped providing the king with sex. Nell Gwynn, who initially was the greatest comedienne of the stage before she retired to become the official mistress to King Charles II, began the dukedom of St. Albans (the descendants have surname of Beauclerk) by giving birth to two of King Charles' sons. I highly recommend the recently published book, Nell Gwyn: Mistress to a King by Charles Beauclerk, (2005), Gwynn's descendant.


Other courtesans lived out their lives in convents after retiring from "courtesenary": two examples were Louise de La Vallière in the 17th century and Liane de Pougy in the 19th century. And some died in obscurity and poverty such as the 19th century courtesan Cora Pearl, after one of the most brilliant and dazzling careers as a French femmes gallantes. I recommend, The Truth About Cora Pearl by Polly Binder, (1986).

Courtesans, in history, were women who supported themselves by providing sexual and personal companionship with wealthy men, oftentimes rulers of countries. Many of these women never had a choice about the career--they followed in their mother's footsteps (as is the case of Veronica Franco in Dangerous Beauty or as in Gigi's case, her Aunt Alicia). Sometimes they chose the profession in order to educate themselves, an option which was not generally available for woman-kind. More often than not these gals fell into their careers as a way to support themselves. One of things about the study of courtesans that can be confusing is the distinction between a courtesan and a mistress, although most frequently they are one and the same.

The word courtesan is defined by Merriam Webster as: (noun) a prostitute with a courtly, wealthy, or upper-class clientele

Etymology Middle French courtisane, from northern Italian dialect form of Italian cortigiana woman courtier, feminine of cortigiano courtier, from corte court, from Latin cohort-, cohors Date:1533

On the other hand, a mistress is defined (the similar associations at least) by Merriam Webster as: (noun) 3: a woman other than his wife with whom a married man has a continuing sexual relationship
Etymology: Middle English maistresse, from Anglo-French mestresse, feminine of mestre master Date:14th century

There are distinctions that are important between these two words. I've found these distinctions to be true throughout all of my studies of "courtesanary." First, you can have mistress who in my opinion really isn't a courtesan. This is most often associated with mistresses of a king which is where the distinctions tend to get blurry. One well known mistress to a king was Mrs. Alice Keppel (great-grandmother of another mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, Prince Charles' longtime mistress and current second wife) who was the long-time mistress to England's King Edward VII (Prince Charles' great great grandfather).

As we have seen, a courtesan is by definition a prostitute (prostitute: "to offer indiscriminately for sexual intercourse especially for money or 2 : to devote to corrupt or unworthy purposes" as per Merriam Webster). A mistress, by definition, is not. Any maitresse-en-titre will always be the beneficiary of the king's largesse (in more ways than one no doubt) but that is where the connection with "courtesanary" ends. Mrs. Keppel was lovers to King Edward VII but she was never a prostitute. Rather, their relationship was one of love and not of commerce. Another interesting distinction of Mrs. Keppel, and one that I think is the fundamental reasons she can never be called a courtesan, is that she was only the mistress to one man (although she was a wife to another). Most courtesans gained their wealth through a series of rich and powerful patrons. Courtesans also have one motive in their profession, it is not love, but money (as Dangerous Beauty portrays so well--you'll see. Jacqueline Bissett, who plays Veronica's mother and who initiates and educates her in the art of "courtesanary" warns her daughter to never give her heart).

So, another distinction between the two: "courtesanary" is a profession, being a mistress is not, although the latter oftentimes can be a very profitable situation. (So, yes, many maitresse-en-titres in history are considered courtesans but not all maitresse-en-titres can be considered courtesans.)

The final period in history for courtesans really was the demimondaines of the Folies Bergere-era in Paris. Since that time, with the advent of women's rights, ways for women to acquire wealth and power have expanded. Another reason for the extinction of the courtesan has to do with fame and how that has changed in modern times. Throughout history courtesans were usually the most famous women of their times. They were celebrities. We now have actors and athletes that provide that role.

No doubt, there are probably many women in the world today who have acquired wealth and/or power by what would traditionally be called (at least on my blog page) "courtesanary." But they certainly aren't publicized. They probably sit in magnificent hotels today in Paris quietly enjoy the life they have acquired for themselves.

Perhaps the last truly great and famous courtesan in history is Pamela (nee Digby) Churchill Hayworth Harriman. She is the closest thing to a modern day courtesan that you can get. First of all she was famous (and infamous at times). She acquired great wealth through a series of husbands and lovers. She was lover at one point or another to these wealthy powerful men: Gianni Agnelli, the Italian industrialist and head of Fiat; Baron Elie de Rothschild; Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos; Prince Aly Khan; and CBS founder William Paley (she did manage to work the globe). She was also a wife to Winston Churchill's son, Randolph; Broadway producer Leland Hayworth; and wealthy railroad tycoon Averill Harriman. And finally, she acquired great power over the years: she died in Paris where she was the US French ambassador during Clinton's administration. I strongly recommend reading Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman by Sally Beddell Smith, (1997).
Pamela Harriman is an example of a courtesan who was wildly successful at the craft but who wasn't a great beauty. This was sometimes the case throughout history where a courtesan could achieve success despite her lack of conventional beauty. The best example was Blanche de Paiva, more commonly known as La Paiva. She refused to have her image painted for what must have been obvious reasons. But she gained such power and wealth and it is preserved in the opulent and magnificent mansion the she built for herself in Paris, the Hotel Paiva. Other nonconventional beautiful courtesans often found success through their sex appeal or humor. In Harriman's case, one would wonder what the allure was? She certainly must have been intelligent.

There was a book that was published in the last few years that I would recommend reading after you've read a few of the other books about courtesans in history. It is perhaps the best book about modern day courtesans, or, as the book is titled, The Fortune Hunters: Dazzling Women and the Men They Married by Charlotte Hays, (2007). I don't agree with the author's inclusion of some of the women (Duchess of Windsor, Princess Diana, Caroline Bessette Kennedy) but it does illustrate very well some fine examples of "courtesans" of the 20th century.

I am fascinated with this subject. I also am a book seller and I specialize in famous courtesans so if you'd like to purchase some of the books or movies mentioned in this posting please visit my website at www.jmvintage.com.

I do recommend that if you are not a reader that you at least watch the movie Dangerous Beauty. Which began my beautiful obsession with courtesans.