Madame de Pompadour
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:6th Oct '11
Should be back in stock very soon
An eclectic, affectionate biography of Louis XV's most famous and enduring mistress
When Jeanne-Antoinette was nine, she was told by a fortune teller that she would one day become the mistress of the handsome young Louix XV - from that day she was groomed to become 'a morsel fit for a King'.When Jeanne-Antoinette was nine, she was told by a fortune teller that she would one day become the mistress of the handsome young Louix XV - from that day she was groomed to become 'a morsel fit for a King'. Nancy Mitford lovingly tells the story of how the little girl rose, against a backdrop of savage social-climbing, intrigue, excess and high drama, to become the most powerful women of the eighteenth century French court, Le Pompadour.
My favourite biography is Nancy Mitford's Madame de Pompadour - a famous 18th-century French beauty who became Louis XV's mistress. The secret of a good biography is not just to tell the person's story but to create the world in which they lived. -- Julian Fellowes * Daily Express *
Mitford brings warmth to everything she touches, and her biography of Madame de Pompadour is testimony to that -- Justine Picardie * Sunday Telegraph *
Reads as if an enchantingly clever woman was pouring out the story to me on the telephone -- Raymond Mortimer
Nancy Mitford excels in depicting both the brilliant romantic showcase and the recessed world of power... No historian writing in English has given a better pen-picture of Versailles in its heyday * Time *
Incontestably her best book, Madame de Pompadour is beautifully written in a rapid, nervous, gay and enthusiastic manner which carries the reader through from first page to last -- Cyril Connolly * Sunday Times *
ISBN: 9780099528876
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 16mm
Weight: 180g
256 pages