Böcker av Lisa Hilton

A CLANDESTINE AFFAIR. AN OUTRAGEOUS ELOPEMENT. STOLEN LETTERS. SCHEMING SERVANTS. SEX. SENSATION. CELEBRITY.THIS IS THE SCANDAL OF THE CENTURY.__________There are few labels not attached to Aphra Behn - playwright, poet, a spy, a scarlet woman condemned for loose morals. And yet, for all her notoriety Aphra Behn is an enigma.Born in around 1640, her early life isn't well recorded and facts about her are continually disputed. Her birth name may have been Eaffrey Johnson and she could have been the daughter of a Canterbury barber, although neither fact is certain. And, just after the Restoration she probably briefly lived in the English colony of Surinam in South America, where she was perhaps embroiled in political espionage. Whatever the truth, Behn was in London by 1664 and six years later was writing for the stage.For a decade, Behn's work dominated the London stage. Then, suddenly in 1682, she was charged with libel. Her plays could not be produced and by the time of the trial of the century Behn was broke. She decided that writing would be her way out and began to write a novel based on the most notorious adultress of a notoriously adulterous age - Lady Henrietta Berkeley.__________

'A sweeping, scintillatingly original, exciting exploration of writer, spy, power player, lover Aphra Behn' Kate Williams, historian and author of Rival Queens: The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots'Hilton to showcase[s] her skill for both historical and detective work and compelling, evocative writing . . . A sparkling and eye-opening account . . . compelling to read [and] refreshingly transparent . . . Her fresh ideas could open up exciting paths for future scholars' BBC History Magazine----A CLANDESTINE AFFAIR 'Whereas the Lady Henrietta Berkeley has been absent from her Father's house since the 20th August last past . . . AN OUTRAGEOUS ELOPEMENT. . . and is not yet known where she is, nor whether she is alive or dead. STOLEN LETTERS, SCHEMING SERVANTS These are to give notice That whoever shall find her, so that she may be brought back to her Father, the Earl of Berkeley, they shall have 200 Pounds Reward' SEX. SENSATION. CELEBRITY. This is The Scandal of the Century - and the true story of the author Aphra Behn, who used a shocking love affair to create the first English novel . . . ----In 1682, a young woman in the throes of a passionate affair flees her parents' home in Surrey to seek a new life in London. A scandal in its own right, but this is no ordinary young woman: Lady Henrietta Berkeley is the daughter of one of England's most powerful men, and her lover is her own sister's husband. As news of this notorious adulteress spreads, her flight, capture and the lawsuit that follow tear through society as the scandal of the century.To Aphra Behn, England's first professional female writer - herself condemned as a scarlet woman of loose morals - Henrietta's trial would be more than a source of shock and intrigue: it would inspire her to write Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, an outrageous and bestselling political fiction and arguably the first novel in English literature.Aphra herself is an enigma, the facts about her life continually disputed. By revealing the story of these two rebellious and ruthless women, Lisa Hilton's new history offers a surprisingly original theory on the origins of one of England's most celebrated playwrights. Against the backdrop of seventeenth-century England, with its strict traditional conventions of love, duty and identity, The Scandal of the Century shows just how far both women will go to break free.---'Gloriously mind-boggling . . . This is a lively book' Spectator

The bestselling author and historian Lisa Hilton picks up the mythical 'City of Ladies' where the medieval writer Christine de Pisan left off, continuing a conversation about gender and greatness that began more than six hundred years ago.

The compelling love story of two extraordinary individuals - Nancy Mitford and Free French commander Gaston Palewski - living in extraordinary times - immortalised in THE PURSUIT OF LOVE'A delicious mix of drama, melancholy and enchantment' DAILY EXPRESS

A definitive portrait of one of the most compelling monarchs England has ever had: Elizabeth I.

England from the perspective of its consort queens - a distaff history of the nation from 1066 to 1503.