The Duke was awful. ( )

An enthralling complex read of an enthralling complex woman! Despite its length and the incredible amount of detail, I was never in a hurry, no doubt because I knew my new 'friend' would be around for quite a while, and that I could savor the unfolding of her life just as I trusted the author's incredible ability to portray it. It's been a while since I read Georgiana, and recently -- after watching a 1954 film with Liz Taylor, 'Lady Patricia' -- I found myself flipping through the book nostalgically and wanting to read it again. Which I no doubt will!

I have to admit that it was the movie that made me want to read this book. I guess I am one of the few people reviewing who actually liked the movie. I usually try not to mind it too much when a history book is made into a movie that a lot of the things aren't exactly as they are: I get that as a movie-maker you have to make some storylines more fitting to a general public or more fitting to make a movie interesting to watch. I rather applaud the fact that movies like the one that has been made about the Duchess of Devonshire will awaken people's interest into historical figures.
Anyway,putting aside the debate about the movie, I am excessively glad that I took the time to read this book. I absolutely loved getting to know about the life of this highly interesting woman. I can't wait to read more about her. It also made me realise that I made the right choice in wanting to continue my studies in the field of genderstudies and the 18th-19th century. ( )

Absorbing biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, one of the leading society ladies of the late eighteenth century. Amanda Foreman expertly traces Georgiana's life, covering all the bases: her childhood, her marriage which developed into a menage a trois, her long struggle to produce an heir, her addiction to gambling which led to crippling debts, her role as an arbiter of fashion, her leading part in Whig politics and her eventual decline as her health failed. The book shows Georgiana in all her complexity as a basically good woman severely tested by her own weaknesses plus the very loose morals of her social class. Much different from the film "The Duchess", which was only loosely based on her life. ( )

A re-read, to confirm that the fiction of the recent film with Keira Knightley bears little or no resemblance to the facts of Amanda Foreman's biography.

Knightley's role portrays Georgiana as a victim of circumstance, cruelly treated by her husband and his mistress, when there was much more to her life than that. She did not resent Lady Elizabeth Foster, but valued her friendship, despite Bess' calculating insinuation into her social circle ('Racky', as she was known by Georgiana and the Duke, wanted the wealth and position that her friend enjoyed, more than she was after her husband!) Bess had two children with the Duke, and was able to maintain contact with both - whereas her husband kept both their sons in Ireland until they were much older (the film suggests she hooked up with the Duke for purely noble, maternal motives). Neither did Georgiana forsake a girlish romance with Charles Grey to marry into the peerage - he was her 'toyboy', and their affair began later in life. The film also glibly skips over Georgiana's influential role in the complicated politics of the day, supporting Charles Fox and the Whigs by actively campaigning on the party's behalf and by cajoling the fickle Prince of Wales. She was far more powerful than a mere mascot dressed in party colours. The incredible personal debts she amassed (over £50, 000) - mostly from gambling, but also a misplaced generosity with friends - are strangely absent from her big screen adaptation. In watering down the film to explain history to Hollywood, Georgiana's exceptional story has been cruelly diluted; this book is a must for anyone interested in a true representation of her character.

That said, the necessary but laborious exposition in Amanda Foreman's biography can sometimes act as a drag on the narrative, particularly towards the latter years of Georgiana's life, when she was bravely struggling to form and hold together a coalition of the famous Whig names of the day - Fox, Grenville, Grey and Pitt. The background to the French Revolution is rather surplus to requirements, when a personal perspective - Georgiana was good friends with Marie Antoinette and the 'Little Po' - would have sufficed.

The best summary of this amazing woman is as follows: 'an acknowleged beauty yet unwanted by her husband, a popular leader of the ton who saw through its hypocrisy, and a woman whom people loved who was yet so insecure in her ability to command love that she became dependent on the suspect devotion of Lady Elizabeth Foster. [...] a generous contributor to charitable causes who nevertheless stole from her friends, [...] a politician without a vote and a skilled tactician a generation before the development of professional party politics.'

Georgiana's Victorian descendents censored her copious correspondence and personal diaries to project an acceptable public reputation for a complex character; nearly all references to her domestic life with Bess, her affairs and her illegitimate daughter with Grey were erased. Sadly, 'The Duchess' seems to have been written with the same intention, despite Amanda Foreman's advisory role on set. ( )