Memoirs Of Harriette Wilson Written By Herself Thirty Fifth Edition With A Preface And A Postscript By Thomas Little And An Appendix Containing An Account Of The Action For Libel Brought By Robert Blore Against The Publisher Of The Book

Author : Harriette Wilson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781976840333
Total Pages : 443 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (43 download)

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Download or read book The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson (Annotated) written by Harriette Wilson and published by . This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an annotated version of the book1. contains an updated biography of the author at the end of the book for a better understanding of the text.2. This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errors_Harriette Wilson, the daughter of John and Amelia Dubochet, was bornin London on February_ 22, 1786. _Her birth is recorded in the ParishRegister of St. George, Hanover Square, and her father's name appears inthe List of Rate Payers _(1786)_ as residing at _2_ Carrington Street,Mayfair. The house still exists, and its external structure seems tohave been unaltered since the time it was built.__In old peerage volumes Dubochet, whose daughter Sophia married thesecond Lord Berwick, is vaguely described as M. Dubochet of Switzerland,but there is good reason for assuming that he was a clockmaker. Thearticle on Harriette Wilson in the Dictionary of National Biographystates that she was born about_ 1789, _that her father kept a small shopin Mayfair, and that she flourished between the years_ 1810 _and_ 1825._There can be no question, however, that she was on terms of intimacy,about_ 1805, _with the sixth Duke of Argyle, and that in the followingyear she became the mistress of John, afterwards Viscount, Ponsonby,a handsome man of whom George IV. was jealous on account of LadyConyngham. Ponsonby succeeded as Baron on November_ 5, 1806, _and, asrelated in the Memoirs, he met Harriette a few weeks before his father'sdeath.__The Memoirs were first published in_ 1825 _by John Joseph Stockdale,who issued them in paper cover parts, and so great was the demand that abarrier had to be erected in Stockdale's shop to regulate the crowd thatcame to buy. Thirty editions are said to have been sold in one year,and the work was also pirated by T. Douglas, E. Thomas, and others. Thepresent edition is reprinted from the original paper cover parts.__The Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Worcester, Lord Alvanley,"Poodle" Byng, Beau Brummell, "King" Allen, Lord Yarmouth (Thackeray'sMarquis of Steyne), and the third Duke of Leinster, were among thenumerous men of rank and fashion who came to Harriette's house, and whatis really valuable in her book is the almost photographic fidelity withwhich she reproduces the conversations and traits of her visitors. Sheobserved the men of her "salon" as only a clever woman can, and, becauseof this, the Memoirs are lifted from worthlessness and form a mostinteresting addition to the society chronicles of the time. Sir WalterScott in his Journal, December_ 9, 1825, _writes as follows about theMemoirs and Harriette:_"_... there is some good retailing of conversations, in which the styleof the speaker, so far as known to me, is exactly imitated.... Some oneasked Lord A----y, himself very sorrily handled from time to time, ifHarriette Wilson had been pretty correct on the whole. 'Why, faith,' hereplied, 'I believe so....'" "I think," proceeds Sir Walter, "I oncesupped in her company more than twenty years since at Mat Lewis's,where the company, as the Duke said to Lucio, chanced to be 'fairer thanhonest.' She was far from beautiful ... but a smart saucy girl, withgood eyes and dark hair, and the manners of a wild schoolboy."__After 1825 very little is known of Harriette Wilson beyond the factthat she lived abroad and married a Colonel Rochfort, with whom sheresided for a time at_ 111 _Rue du Faubourg St. Honor�, Paris._