A Conversation on the Quai Voltaire
by Lee Langley
15 Members (4.00)
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Description
This lively, colourful historical novel -- which hinges on the relationship between a master and his valet -- invites the reader into its own Liaisons Dangereuses... Collector, adventurer and artist, Vivant Denon was a youthful courtier at Versailles; he lived through the French Revolution, and galloped across Egypt with Bonaparte. A skilled survivor, he knew everyone - Marie Antoinette, Voltaire, Robespierre, Catherine the Great, the artists of the day, Boucher and David. He found world show more fame without seeking it, risking his life and happiness in an endless quest, a love affair with art.Taking a real historical figure, his extraordinary life, his passions, his friendship with Napoleon, the Venetian contessa who was his great love, Lee Langley has created a vast, rich canvas that captures the dying grandeur of Venice, the battle of the Nile, a dazzling liaison dangereuse, bringing to life the sweep of the period alongside a tender and intimate story. Remaining true to Denon's biography, she has with verve, wit and imaginative invention, constructed a parallel existence for a vulnerable, guarded man in a laughing mask.And there is Baptiste, the valet, living in his shadow, observing the antics of the court and the turbulence of the Terror, and his master, ever closer to Napoleon, cramming the Louvre with the looted treasures of the enemies of France.The private life, too, is open to the observant eye of the valet. He is the confidant, the recipient of secrets. Servant and master, the provider of comforts and the privileged - a relationship as close as marriage. And what of the valet himself? He too has hopes. And heartbreak. show lessTags
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Author Information
11+ Works 202 Members
Lee Langley, the author of nine novels, has also written for the stage and screen and has won the Writers' Guild Best Fiction Award and a Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Novel for Persistent Rumours (Milkweed, 1994). Her novels have been shortlisted twice for the Hawthornden Prize in Britain. Langley's stage writing has been produced in show more London's West End, and her scriptwriting work for British and American television includes a dramatization of Graham Greene's The Tenth Man, with Anthony Hopkins and Derek Jacobi. She writes on travel and the arts for leading newspapers and journals. Born in Calcutta, India, of Scottish parents, Langley now lives in England, where she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and active in PEN, the international writers' organization show less
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Vivant Denon; Marie Antoinette; Voltaire "François-Marie Arouet", 1694-1778
- Important places
- Versailles, Île-de-France, France
- Important events
- French Revolution
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 15
- Popularity
- 1,596,829
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- English, Portuguese
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
