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Laddar... Lily, Duchess of Marlboroughav Sally E. Svenson
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Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. Apparently Fowler's biography of the Duchess in [b:In a Gilded Cage|1715743|In a Gilded Cage From Heiress to Duchess|Marian Fowler|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320498305s/1715743.jpg|1713051] was riddled with errors--Svenson has set out to correct them. Sally E. Svenson has written a very readable biography of Lily, Duchess of Marlborough. Lily's story is extremely interesting. She made three very good matches, though was unlucky enough to lose all three husbands prematurely. Her friendship with the young Winston Churchill also made for good reading. This book is an important addition to the saga of the Gilded Age and those American women who married into the titled families of Europe. Thank you author Sally Svenson for offering me this book to review! Although I make a hobby of reading about the British Aristocracy, and have also read books about Jennie Jerome (who married Randolph Churchill) and Consuelo Vanderbilt (who married the 9th Duke of Marlborough), I knew nothing of Lily Price Hamersley who married the 8th Duke of Marlborough. Lily was a remarkable woman. Born into an upper-middle class family in Troy, New York Lily was a beautiful and charming young woman. Her first husband, Louis Hamersley, introduced her to high society in New York City, and, when he died, left her a very wealthy woman, much to the consternation of his family who were expecting large inheritances from his estate. Their long, drawn out law suit contesting Hamersley's will reminded me of the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce law suit in Bleak House.During this time, Lily proved her mettle facing down not only her husband's family, but also the society gossips of New York. Eventually winning the law suit, she emerged a very wealthy widow - just the person the 8th Duke of Marlborough would be attracted to. Lily's marriage to the Duke was also fraught with scandal, mostly because of his behavior prior to their marriage. Although she was presented at Court, she never was truly a part of Court circles, despite her rank, because of Marlborough's prior sexual escapades. However, Lily seems to have made the best of it becoming an outdoors woman to become close to her husband and generously pouring money into his estate at Blenheim (at one point she pays the the three acres [!!] of roof to be repaired). However,no fool she, at all times she retains control of her own money. When the Duke dies suddenly, Lily acts with grace and charm, turning Blenheim immediately over to the 9th Duke and his mother (her husband's first wife) with nary a squawk or whimper. It would be nice to think that she was treated with corresponding respect by the new Duke, but sadly such was not the case. Lily, however, floated above it all and, in the process, married her third husband, the sporty Anglo-Irish Lord William de la Poer Beresford. This last marriage seemed to be the happiest. Lilly had her own beautiful country estate where she entertained lavishly, and at the age of 42, became a mother for the first time. Although she died too young of cancer at the age of 55, Lily had led a full life. She was full of confidence, a shrewd business woman, and a precursor for the feminists who would follow after her in the twentieth century. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
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 Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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