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A Courtesans Scandal
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Book Synopsis A Courtesan's Scandal by : Julia London
Download or read book A Courtesan's Scandal written by Julia London and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-10-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Julia London is at her best in this sensual Regency where a Duke must pretend his mistress is his wife. Kate Bergeron is the beautiful and mysterious former mistress of a cloth merchant...and the latest beauty to capture the interest of the Prince of Wales. Mired in a disastrous divorce, the Prince attempts to distract attention from his next amorous pursuit by ordering Grayson Christopher, the eligible Duke of Darlington, to pretend to London society that he is having an affair with Kate. When Grayson reluctantly agrees to his Prince's demand, he finds the lady no more willing than he is. Kate will grudgingly act the part in public, but her favors are not for sale to any man. As Grayson and Kate mimic ardor for the world to see, they find what started as a deception becoming all too real. And when passion flames into love, their predicament becomes extreme. For while marriage between a duke and a courtesan could never happen, Kate knows in her heart that she is willing to accept nothing less...
Book Synopsis A Courtesan's Scandal by : Julia London
Download or read book A Courtesan's Scandal written by Julia London and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-09-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Julia London is at her best in this sensual Regency where a Duke must pretend his mistress is his wife. Kate Bergeron is the beautiful and mysterious former mistress of a cloth merchant...and the latest beauty to capture the interest of the Prince of Wales. Mired in a disastrous divorce, the Prince attempts to distract attention from his next amorous pursuit by ordering Grayson Christopher, the eligible Duke of Darlington, to pretend to London society that he is having an affair with Kate. When Grayson reluctantly agrees to his Prince's demand, he finds the lady no more willing than he is. Kate will grudgingly act the part in public, but her favors are not for sale to any man. As Grayson and Kate mimic ardor for the world to see, they find what started as a deception becoming all too real. And when passion flames into love, their predicament becomes extreme. For while marriage between a duke and a courtesan could never happen, Kate knows in her heart that she is willing to accept nothing less...
Book Synopsis The Book of Scandal by : Julia London
Download or read book The Book of Scandal written by Julia London and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published by in New York by Pocket Books, 2008.
Download or read book Courtesans written by Katie Hickman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2004-11-02 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the course of the nineteenth century, a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence, and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives -- and those of other people -- and made the world do their will. Extremely accomplished, well-educated, and unusually literate, courtesans exerted an incredible influence as leaders of society. They were not received at court, but inhabited their own parallel world -- the demimonde -- complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette, and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue, and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement.
Book Synopsis The Book of the Courtesans by : Susan Griffin
Download or read book The Book of the Courtesans written by Susan Griffin and published by Crown. This book was released on 2002-02-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer-Prize-nominated author Susan Griffin comes an unprecedented, provocative look at the dazzling world of the West’s first independent women, whose lively liaisons brought them unspoken influence, wealth, and freedom. 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 freedom in a time when other women were denied all of these. From Imperia of sixteenth-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 strong- willed, autonomous, and plucky. An open secret, their presence can be felt throughout our culture. The muses who enflamed the hearts and imaginations of our most celebrated artists, they were also artists in their own right. They wrote poetry and novels, invented the cancan at the Moulin Rouge, and presented celebrated acts at the Folies Bergères. They helped to influence and shape the sensibility of modern literature, painting, and fashion. When Greek sculptor Praxiteles wanted to depict Venus he used a famous courtesan as a model, as in later centuries Titian, Veronese, Raphael, Giorgione, and Boucher did when they painted goddesses. When Marcel Proust was a young man it was the courtesan Laure Hayman who took him under her wing, introducing him to the right people, and providing inspiration for one of literature’s greatest masterpieces. And they often had considerable political influence too. When King Louis XV needed advice on foreign affairs or appointments of state he turned to Jeanne du Barry as well as Pompadour. In her witty and insightful prose, as Griffin celebrates these alluring and fascinating women, she restores a lost legacy of women’s history. She gives us the stories of these amazing women who, starting from impoverished or unimpressive beginnings, garnered chateaux, fine coaches, fabulous collections of jewelry, and even aristocratic titles along the way. And through a brilliant exploration of their extraordinary abilities, skills, and talents which Griffin playfully categorizes as their virtues "Timing, Beauty, Cheek, Brilliance, Gaiety, Grace, and Charm" her book explains how, while helping themselves, through their often outrageous, always entertaining examples, the great courtesans not only enriched our cultural heritage but helped to liberate women from the social, sexual, and economic strictures that confined them. Intensively researched and beautifully crafted, The Book of the Courtesans delves into scintillating but often hidden worlds, telling stories gleaned from many sources, including courtesans’ memoirs, presented along with stunning rare photographs to create memorable portraits of some of the most pivotal figures in women’s history.
Book Synopsis Queen of the Courtesans by : Barbara White
Download or read book Queen of the Courtesans written by Barbara White and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-06-02 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fanny Murray was an incomparable Georgian beauty and the most desired courtesan of the 1750s. The daughter of an impoverished musician from Bath, she took London society by storm, not only as the most prized 'purchaseable beauty' of her day, but also as a fashion icon and muse to poets, writers and artists. She counted princes, aristocrats and politicians among her friends and lovers, but relished the company of rogues, fraudsters and ne'er-do-wells. Barbara White presents evidence to suggest that Fanny Murray participated spiritedly in the sexual antics of the notorious 'Monks of Medmenham', the most infamous of the Hell-fire Clubs. After she retired from prostitution, Fanny Murray reinvented herself, entering a pragmatic marriage with the Scottish actor David Ross. Surprisingly, her virtues as a devoted and faithful wife became almost proverbial. Even so, Murray could not escape her disreputable past. In 1763, a scurrilous poem dedicated to her caused a national scandal that ended in the infamous trial of the radical politician John Wilkes for obscene libel. Barbara White's portrait of Fanny Murray takes readers from the brothels of Covent Garden to sex romps at Medmenham Abbey, from refined drawing rooms in London to marital respectability in Edinburgh. This is an illuminating contribution to the scholarly understanding and popular appreciation of a complex and intriguing period of British history. Fanny Murray's triumph – against almost insuperable odds – is a remarkable story, as rich in the telling as it is enthralling.
Book Synopsis In the Company of the Courtesan by : Sarah Dunant
Download or read book In the Company of the Courtesan written by Sarah Dunant and published by Random House. This book was released on 2006-04-11 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor’s army blew a hole in the wall of God’s eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment. Thus begins In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant’s epic novel of life in Renaissance Italy. Escaping the sack of Rome in 1527, with their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiammetta and her dwarf companion, Bucino, head for Venice, the shimmering city born out of water to become a miracle of east-west trade: rich and rancid, pious and profitable, beautiful and squalid. With a mix of courage and cunning they infiltrate Venetian society. Together they make the perfect partnership: the sharp-tongued, sharp-witted dwarf, and his vibrant mistress, trained from birth to charm, entertain, and satisfy men who have the money to support her. Yet as their fortunes rise, this perfect partnership comes under threat, from the searing passion of a lover who wants more than his allotted nights to the attentions of an admiring Turk in search of human novelties for his sultan’s court. But Fiammetta and Bucino’s greatest challenge comes from a young crippled woman, a blind healer who insinuates herself into their lives and hearts with devastating consequences for them all. A story of desire and deception, sin and religion, loyalty and friendship, In the Company of the Courtesan paints a portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities at its most potent moment in history: It is a picture that remains vivid long after the final page.
Book Synopsis Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World by : Christopher A. Faraone
Download or read book Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World written by Christopher A. Faraone and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2008-03-14 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World explores the implications of sex-for-pay across a broad span of time, from ancient Mesopotamia to the early Christian period. In ancient times, although they were socially marginal, prostitutes connected with almost every aspect of daily life. They sat in brothels and walked the streets; they paid taxes and set up dedications in religious sanctuaries; they appeared as characters—sometimes admirable, sometimes despicable—on the comic stage and in the law courts; they lived lavishly, consorting with famous poets and politicians; and they participated in otherwise all-male banquets and drinking parties, where they aroused jealousy among their anxious lovers. The chapters in this volume examine a wide variety of genres and sources, from legal and religious tracts to the genres of lyric poetry, love elegy, and comic drama to the graffiti scrawled on the walls of ancient Pompeii. These essays reflect the variety and vitality of the debates engendered by the last three decades of research by confronting the ambiguous terms for prostitution in ancient languages, the difficulty of distinguishing the prostitute from the woman who is merely promiscuous or adulterous, the question of whether sacred or temple prostitution actually existed in the ancient Near East and Greece, and the political and social implications of literary representations of prostitutes and courtesans.
Book Synopsis The Courtesan and the Gigolo by : Aaron Freundschuh
Download or read book The Courtesan and the Gigolo written by Aaron Freundschuh and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-11 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intrigue began with a triple homicide in a luxury apartment building just steps from the Champs-Elyseés, in March 1887. A high-class prostitute and two others, one of them a child, had been stabbed to death—the latest in a string of unsolved murders targeting women of the Parisian demimonde. Newspapers eagerly reported the lurid details, and when the police arrested Enrico Pranzini, a charismatic and handsome Egyptian migrant, the story became an international sensation. As the case descended into scandal and papers fanned the flames of anti-immigrant politics, the investigation became thoroughly enmeshed with the crisis-driven political climate of the French Third Republic and the rise of xenophobic right-wing movements. Aaron Freundschuh's account of the "Pranzini Affair" recreates not just the intricacies of the investigation and the raucous courtroom trial, but also the jockeying for status among rival players—reporters, police detectives, doctors, and magistrates—who all stood to gain professional advantage and prestige. Freundschuh deftly weaves together the sensational details of the case with the social and political undercurrents of the time, arguing that the racially charged portrayal of Pranzini reflects a mounting anxiety about the colonial "Other" within France's own borders. Pranzini's case provides a window into a transformational decade for the history of immigration, nationalism, and empire in France.
Book Synopsis A Courtesan's Guide to Getting Your Man by : Celeste Bradley
Download or read book A Courtesan's Guide to Getting Your Man written by Celeste Bradley and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Boston museum curator Piper Chase-Pierpont unearths the steamy memoirs of Regency London's most celebrated courtesan, the Blackbird, she's aroused and challenged by what she finds. Could the courtesan's diaries be used as a modern girl's guide to finding love and empowerment?
Book Synopsis The Mistress of Paris by : Catherine Hewitt
Download or read book The Mistress of Paris written by Catherine Hewitt and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "First published in the United Kingdom by Icon Books Ltd"--Title page verso.
Book Synopsis Prostitutes and Matrons in the Roman World by : Anise K. Strong
Download or read book Prostitutes and Matrons in the Roman World written by Anise K. Strong and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From streetwalkers in the Roman Forum to imperial concubines, Roman prostitutes defined what it meant to be a 'bad girl'.
Book Synopsis Making of a Scandal by : Victoria Vale
Download or read book Making of a Scandal written by Victoria Vale and published by Victoria Vale. This book was released on 2020-04-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gentleman should never mix business with pleasure, unless he’s a gentleman courtesan … Driven to selling his services to settle gambling debts, the Honourable Mr. Dominick Burke thoroughly enjoys satisfying the appetites of wealthy women. When Miss Calliope Barrington contracts his services, his desire for her is instant and powerful. Unfortunately, her reasons for hiring him have nothing to do with his bedroom talents. On the hunt for a husband, Calliope plans for Dominick to act the part of enamored suitor—thereby making her a more attractive prospect for the gentleman she has her eye on. In his attempt to seduce her at every turn, Dominick finds himself rapidly losing his heart. However, winning Calliope’s in return will prove difficult. With the true target of Calliope’s efforts taking notice, he now has competition. When a past misdeed threatens to ruin everything, Dominick is left with no other choice. To win Calliope, he’ll have to incite one of the biggest scandals the ton has ever seen.
Download or read book Tawaifnama written by Saba Dewan and published by Context. This book was released on with total page 804 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About the Book A NUANCED AND POWERFUL MICROHISTORY SET AGAINST THE SWEEP OF INDIAN HISTORY. Dharmman Bibi rode into battle during the revolt of 1857 shoulder to shoulder with her patron lover Babu Kunwar Singh. Sadabahar entranced even snakes and spirits with her music, but eventually gave her voice to Baba Court Shaheed. Her foster mothers Bullan and Kallan fought their malevolent brother and an unjust colonial law all the way to the Privy Council—and lost everything. Their great-granddaughter Teema paid for the family’s ruination with her childhood and her body. Bindo, Asghari, Phoolmani, Pyaari … there are so many stories in this family. And you—one of the best-known tawaifs of your times—remember the stories of your foremothers and your own. This is a history, a multi-generational chronicle of one family of well-known tawaifs with roots in Banaras and Bhabua. Through their stories and self-histories, Saba Dewan explores the nuances that conventional narratives have erased, papered over or wilfully rewritten. In a not-so-distant past, tawaifs played a crucial role in the social and cultural life of northern India. They were skilled singers and dancers, and also companions and lovers to men from the local elite. It is from the art practice of tawaifs that kathak evolved and the purab ang thumri singing of Banaras was born. At a time when women were denied access to the letters, tawaifs had a grounding in literature and politics, and their kothas were centres of cultural refinement. Yet, as affluent and powerful as they were, tawaifs were marked by the stigma of being women in the public gaze, accessible to all. In the colonial and nationalist discourse of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this stigma deepened into criminalisation and the violent dismantling of a community. Tawaifnama is the story of that process of change, a nuanced and powerful microhistory set against the sweep of Indian history.
Book Synopsis Courtesans: A Roleplaying Game of Sex and Society by : Ian Warner
Download or read book Courtesans: A Roleplaying Game of Sex and Society written by Ian Warner and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has always been a special class of women who defy conventional morality and family structures in order to achieve power beyond any "legitimate" bride. These are the Courtesans. More than mere common strumpets they are courted as much for their razor sharp wits, minds and sporting skill as much as for sex. Set primarily in the golden age of the English Courtesan between the Restoration and the early 20th Centuries, Courtesans offers a unique political and adversarial Roleplaying experience like no other.
Book Synopsis How to Wed a Courtesan by : Madeline Martin
Download or read book How to Wed a Courtesan written by Madeline Martin and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times Bestselling Author Madeline Martin From courtesan …to society wife? When Evander, Earl of Westix, returns from the continent to claim his bride, he is shocked that the innocent vicar’s daughter he once loved has become a notorious courtesan. But Lottie is so much more than the insult society hurls at her. She is resourceful and strong—after all, she’s had to be to survive. Her charms are undeniable, but her heart is beyond his grasp. To win it will mean taking her from bedroom to ballroom… From Harlequin Historical: Your romantic escape to the past. The London School for Ladies Book 1: How to Tempt a Duke Book 2: How to Start a Scandal Book 3: How to Wed a Courtesan
Book Synopsis The Accidental Courtesan by : Cheryl Ann Smith
Download or read book The Accidental Courtesan written by Cheryl Ann Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this School for Brides romance, a respectable lady must play the part of a seasoned lover in a turnabout game of seduction and irresistible intrigue… The School for Brides stands on its principles: turn comely courtesans into proper wives. But when Lady Noelle Seymour attempts to save a bride-in-training from arrest by sneaking into a stranger’s bedroom to return a stolen necklace, she locks eyes with Gavin Blackwell and gets herself into a whole heap of trouble. Since the truth of her nocturnal visit could land both women in jail, Noelle offers a desperate excuse: She’s there as his new courtesan. Gavin has a lot to learn about London society, but a female housebreaker offering her seductive services is beyond the unexpected. When she vanishes, Gavin tracks her down and demands she make good on her proposition. However, there’s more at stake than Noelle’s virtue. That unfortunate night in Gavin’s room has made her an unwitting pawn in the treacherous game of a woman scorned, and now only Gavin can protect her—in every way he desires...
