Research Catalog

Mrs Keppel and her daughter

Title: Mrs Keppel and her daughter / Diana Souhami.
Author: Souhami, Diana.
Publication: London : HarperCollins, 1996.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	DA568.K46 S683 1996	Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 338 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits; 24 cm

Summary

"Alice Keppel, lover of Queen Victoria's son Edward VII and great-grandmother to Camilla Parker-Bowles, was a key figure in Edwardian society. Hers was the acceptable face of adultery. Discretion was her hallmark. It was her art to be the King's Mistress yet to laud the Royal family and the institution of marriage. She partnered the King for yachting, horse racing at Ascot, country-house weekends and spring holidays in Biarritz. She helped him choose presents for his wife Queen Alexandra and she remained calmly married to her own husband, George. When Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936 so that he could marry the divorcee Wallis Simpson, Mrs. Keppel, dining at the Ritz, was heard to say, 'Things were done much better in my day.'" "Her relationship with the King took her to the heart of Edwardian high society and made her extravagantly rich. Her daughter Violet admired and feared her. 'My dear, our respective mothers take some beating, ' Violet wrote in 1918 to her own lover, Vita Sackville-West. 'I wonder if I shall ever squeeze as much romance into my life as she has had in hers; anyhow I mean to have a jolly good try.'" "But romance for Violet proved tragic and destructive. Mrs. Keppel would not accept her daughter's version of it. Its passion and recalcitrance threatened the fabric of her social world. She used all the force at her command - charm, manipulation, determination, money - to ensure its repression. Broken eventually by her mother's superior power, Violet became in later years a parody of her: living in grand houses, entertaining lavishly, flirting with princes, telling flamboyant lies." "From memoirs, diaries and letters, Diana Souhami portrays this fascinating and intense mother-daughter relationship. Her story of these women, their lovers and their lovers' mothers, highlights Edwardian - and contemporary - duplicity and double standards. It is a story that goes to the heart of questions about the monarchy, family values and sexual freedoms."--Jacket.

Subject

Genre/Form

Biographies
Books.

Note

Ill on inside front and back lining papers.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 309-330) and index.

ISBN

0002556456
9780002556453

OCLC

ocm35136519
35136519
SCSB-14124047

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library