Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (Living Language Series) - Softcover

"Georgiana bursts from the pages of Amanda Foreman's dazzling biography like the force of nature she undoubtedly was -- passionate, political, addicted to gambling, and drunk on life. This is a stunning book about an astonishing woman."
-- Simon Schama

"A most impressive début. I predict a great future for Amanda Foreman. She is a scholar who matches her learning to a sense of adventure and writes with engaging vitality."
-- Michael Holroyd

"A mesmerizing read. . . . The charm of Amanda Foreman's Georgiana is that it gives you all the fascinating detail you want . . . and is at the same time a serious, scholarly work, based on exhaustive archival research."
-- Antonia Fraser, Literary Review

"Stunning historical research plus feminine acuity yield a vivid portrait of a shrewd, seductive ancestor of Princess Diana's in an age before democracy or contraception."
-- Brenda Maddox, author of Yeats' Ghosts and
Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom

"I put this book down entranced by the woman. This is an outstanding début by a young biographer fully in control of her sources, and with an easy, elegant writing style. She tells a tale that calls not only for our admiration but for our compassion."
-- Roy Strong, London Sunday Times

"This is an accomplished and well-written biography, remarkably mature for a first effort; diligently researched and entertainingly presented. Amanda Foreman is a writer to watch and one from whom much can be expected."
-- Daily Telegraph

Provides a dramatic portrait of the colorful life of eighteenth-century British aristocrat Lady Georgiana Spencer, her roles as a society and political hostess, and her disastrous and profligate private life. Winner of the Whitbread Prize. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.