Harriette Wilson (1786–1845)

Ms. Wilson’s claim to fame/notoriety was not so much that she was the most renowned courtesan of the Regency period, but rather that in her later and presumably less attractive years she became strapped for cash and published her memoirs. Even this probably wouldn’t have been particularly noteworthy – other “impure fairs” wrote about their lives before and after Ms. Wilson - except that Harriette came up with a unique twist: she wrote to all the gentlemen she had entertained and offered to leave them out of her book if they sent her £200.


It is, of course, unknown how many men took advantage of Harriette’s offer, but judging from the number who didn’t and are thus mentioned in the Memoirs, she must have been really popular and really busy – the list of men she had encounters with reads like the Peerage. The Duke of Wellington wrote “Publish and Be Damned!” in red ink across Harriette’s blackmail letter and sent it back; thus he does not come off very well in the book – Harriette say he “looked very like a ratcatcher”.


Alas, the book is not all that interesting; Harriette is so busy dropping names that she doesn’t have much time for describing anything else about her times. Several of her clients (including, of course, Wellington) “go to Spain” as if they were taking a beach vacation, when in fact they’re fighting in the Peninsular Campaign. Others pop in and out of her opera box, but she never bothers to comment on the operas or life in London or much of anything.


There’s also little of prurient interest; if you’re looking for a Regency romance novel, you’ll be disappointed. Harriette had a surprisingly brazen business plan; she often wrote letters to noblemen she found interesting, inviting them to come up and see her some time. Subsequent details are suppressed; she gets a passionate kiss from Lord Ponsonby, and Lord Worcester helps her lace up her stays, and that’s about it. She was not supposed to be especially attractive (the elegant lady on the cover of paperback edition I read is apparently not Harriette) but was instead noted for flashing wit and clever conversation. Some of this does come out:


“’I was thinking of you last night, after I got into bed,’ resumed Wellington.
‘How very polite to the Duchess,’ I observed.”


However, you have to wade through pages of criticism of the manners of British nobility and records of boring conversations to come up with an occasional double-entendre like this. Perhaps worthwhile if you have a particular interest in the times; otherwise not.
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