{"title":"Books by Mary S. 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But Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Decca and Debo, 'the mad, mad Mitfords', were far from ordinary.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201692205234,"sku":"9780349115054","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349115054.jpg?v=1786013802"},{"product_id":"9781857024692","title":"A Scandalous Life","description":"The biography of Jane Digby, an ‘enthralling tale of a nineteenth-century beauty whose heart – and hormones – ruled her head.’ Harpers and QueenA celebrated aristocratic beauty, Jane Digby married Lord Ellenborough at seventeen. Their divorce a few years later was one of England s most scandalous at that time. In her quest for passionate fulfilment she had lovers which included an Austrian prince, King Ludvig I of Bavaria, and a Greek count whose infidelities drove her to the Orient. In Syria, she found the love of her life, a Bedouin nobleman, Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab who was twenty years her junior.Bestselling biographer Mary Lovell has produced from Jane Digby’s diaries not only a sympathetic and dramatic portrait of a rare woman, but a fascinating glimpse into the centuries-old Bedouin tradition that is now almost lost.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205797806258,"sku":"9781857024692","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781857024692.jpg?v=1786029313"},{"product_id":"9780349115894","title":"Bess Of Hardwick","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA biography of one of the most remarkable women of the Tudor era - next to Queen Elizabeth the most powerful woman in England\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBess of Hardwick, born into the most brutal and turbulent period of England's history, did not have an auspicious start in life. Widowed for the first time at sixteen, she nonetheless outlived four monarchs, married three more times, and died one of the wealthiest and most powerful women the country has ever seen. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Tudor age was a hazardous time for an ambitious woman: by the time Frances, Bess's first child, was six, three of her illustrious godparents had been beheaded. Plague regularly wiped out entire families, conspiracies and feuds were rife. But through all this Bess Hardwick bore eight children and built an empire of her own: the great houses of Chatsworth and Hardwick..\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'The best account yet of this shrewd, enigmatic and remarkable woman' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Lovell has excelled at bringing the Tudor age to exuberant life. A phenomenal story'\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003eMail on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Utterly absorbing... one of those biographies in which the reader really doesn't want the subject to die'\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003eIndependent on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43399556759730,"sku":"9780349115894","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349115894_8780d0a3-1eb6-42e6-bc9b-66be1ab290e5.jpg?v=1786013821"},{"product_id":"9780349119786","title":"The Churchills","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere never was a Churchill from John of Marlborough down who had either morals or principles', so said Gladstone. From the First Duke of Marlborough - soldier of genius, restless empire-builder and cuckolder of Charles II - onwards, the Churchills have been politicians, gamblers and profligates, heroes and womanisers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Churchills is a richly layered portrait of an extraordinary set of men and women - grandly ambitious, regularly impecunious, impulsive, arrogant and brave. And towering above the Churchill clan is the figure of Winston - his failures and his triumphs shown in a new and revealing context - ultimately our 'greatest Briton'.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286093967733,"sku":"9780349119786","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349119786_88376b01-8e19-4866-920a-f2d5eef77ba0.jpg?v=1786013907"},{"product_id":"9780349110165","title":"A Rage To Live","description":"\u003cp\u003eRichard Burton was a brilliant, charismatic man - a unique blend of erudite scholar and daring adventurer.  Fluent in twenty-nine languages, he found it easy to pass himself off as a native, thereby gaining unique insight into societies otherwise closed to Western scrutiny.  He followed service as an intelligence officer in India by a daring penetration of the sacred Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina disguised as a pilgrim.  He was the first European to enter the forbidden African city of Harar, and discovered Lake Tanganyika in his search for the source of the Nile.  His fascination with, and research into, the intimate customs of ethnic races (which would eventually culminate in his brilliant Kama Sutra) earned him a racy reputation in that age of sexual repression.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLittle surprise, then, that Isabel Arundell's aristocratic mother objected to her daughter's marriage to this most notorious of figures.  Isabel, however, was a spirited, independent-minded woman and was also deeply, passionately in love with Richard.  Against all expectations but their own, the Burtons enjoyed a remarkably successful marriage.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286159405429,"sku":"9780349110165","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349110165_9baa6f98-6b07-4d8e-9ddf-0abf3559ee84.jpg?v=1786015986"},{"product_id":"9780349139890","title":"The Riviera Set","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'I loved every word' - Sarra Manning, \u003ci\u003eRed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'[A] blissful book - it's like basking in the warm Med' - Rachel Johnson, \u003ci\u003eMail on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Riviera Set \u003c\/i\u003eis the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of forty years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. At the heart of this was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château and brought together the likes of Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Windsors and two very saucy courtesans, Doris Castlerosse and Daisy Fellowes, who set out to be dangerous distractions to Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and biographies during his 'wilderness years' in the thirties.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the War the story continued as the Château changed hands and Prince Aly Khan used it to entertain the Hollywood set, as well as launch his seduction of and eventual marriage to Rita Hayworth.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286471618933,"sku":"9780349139890","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349139890_51b701f7-561e-4a58-a4de-b68304d90724.jpg?v=1786013378"},{"product_id":"9780349121758","title":"Straight On Till Morning","description":"\u003cp\u003eBeryl Markham, like Karen Blixen, could only have come out of Africa. Pioneering aviatrix, flamboyant beauty, brilliant race-horse trainer, unscrupulous seducer - her life story is for every reader who was enthralled by Blixen's exotic world, that of Kenya between the wars. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis fully authorised biography, drawn from the author's personal association with Beryl and her family, paints a vivid portrait of a tempestuous and controversial character. It tells of her friendship with Karen Blixen (though she commandeered Blixen's husband Bror and lover Denys Finch Hatton), of her spectacular courage when she became the first person to fly from England to America, and of the mysteries surrounding her highly praised, bestselling book WEST WITH THE NIGHT.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286608294261,"sku":"9780349121758","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349121758_6da51d94-f897-465f-9bb3-86e3ea298002.jpg?v=1786013959"},{"product_id":"9780349121765","title":"Amelia Earhart","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen she disappeared in 1937 over a shark-infested sea, Amelia Earhart had lived up to her wish - internationally famous, a daring and pioneering aviator, and ambassador extraordinary for the United States. Married to a man with a genius for publicity, her life was crowded, demanding and adventurous. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMary S. Lovell's superb biography examines a legend to reveal the pressures and influences that drove Amelia, and shows how her life, career and manner of death foreshadowed the tragedies and excesses of a media-dominated age.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286848483701,"sku":"9780349121765","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349121765_01752b72-629d-473f-9344-8de4b1ad6e3c.jpg?v=1786013960"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-mary-s-lovell.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}