All Categories
    Filters
    Preferences
    Search

    Mistress of Paris: 19th-Century Courtesan who Built an Empire on a Secret

    £8.09
    £8.99
    Price-Match is available in-store for recommended titles in CCCU module handbooks
    ISBN: 9781785780448
    Products specifications
    Attribute nameAttribute value
    AuthorHewitt, Catherine
    Pub Date07/04/2016
    BindingPaperback
    Pages384
    Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
    Ship to
    *
    *
    Shipping Method
    Name
    Estimated Delivery
    Price
    No shipping options
    Availability: Out of Stock
    A fantastically readable biography of a 19th-century Parisian courtesan who harbours an incredible secret

    Valtesse de la Bigne was a celebrated nineteenth-century Parisian courtesan. She was painted by Manet and inspired Emile Zola, who immortalised her in his scandalous novel Nana. Her rumoured affairs with Napoleon III and the future Edward VII kept gossip columns full. But her glamourous existence hid a dark secret: she was no Comtesse. She was born into abject poverty, raised on a squalid Paris backstreet; the lowest of the low. Yet she transformed herself into an enchantress who possessed a small fortune, three mansions, fabulous carriages, and art the envy of connoisseurs across Europe. A consummate show-woman, she ensured that her life - and even her death - remained shrouded in just enough mystery to keep her audience hungry for more. Catherine Hewitt's biography tells, for the first time ever in English, the forgotten story of a remarkable woman who, though her roots were lowly, never stopped aiming high.