Author: Elizabeth AbbottPublisher: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 9780715639467
Category : Mistresses
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
No Marketing Blurb
A History of Mistresses
Author: Elizabeth AbbottPublisher: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 9780715639467
Category : Mistresses
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
No Marketing Blurb
History Of Mistresses
Author: Elizabeth AbbottPublisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 536
Book Description
She has been known as the "kept woman," the "fancywoman," and the "other woman." The French acknowledge herexistence by remarking, "The chains of marriage are so heavy that it oftentakes three people to carry them." She is Jeanne Antoinette de Pompadour,and Simone de Beauvoir, not to mention Marilyn Monroe and Camilla Parker-Bowles.She is a mistress, and she has been – and is – very much apart of our humancultural history. But who is she, really? What is the true nature of themistress-lover relationship? How do women experience mistressdom? And where doeslove figure in all of this? Elizabeth Abbott, who made celibacy sexy in her acclaimed A History ofCelibacy, has the fascinating storehouse of answers in a deliciously richblend of history, personality and cultural study. In a lively and accessiblestyle, History of Mistresses draws intimate portraits of mistressesthroughout history, from Chinese concubines to Europe’s royal mistresses andthe clandestine consorts of (un)celibate clerics. Mobster molls, trophy dollsand modern mistresses are deconstructed, with often surprising results. Beyondthe personalities, some interesting themes emerge: the relationship betweenmistresses of colour and their married men; the coercion of Jewish women duringthe Holocaust; and a contemporary look at today’s "power"mistresses. From lust to love, from money to power, Abbott’s A History of Mistressesferrets out the motives and morals of these women, carrying the reader along ona journey that is hugely informative and always entertaining.
Old Mistresses
Author: Rozsika ParkerPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350149187
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
Why is everything that compromises greatness in art coded as 'feminine'? Has the feminist critique of Art History yet effected real change? With a new preface by Griselda Pollock, this edition of a truly groundbreaking book offers a radical challenge to a women-free Art History. Parker and Pollock's critique of Art History's sexism leads to expanded, inclusive readings of the art of the past. They demonstrate how the changing historical social realities of gender relations and women artists' translation of gendered conditions into their works provide keys to novel understandings of why we might study the art of the past. They go further to show how such knowledge enables us to understand art by contemporary artists who are women and can contribute to the changing self-perception and creative work of artists today. In March 2020 Griselda Pollock was awarded the Holberg Prize in recognition of her outstanding contribution to research and her influence on thinking on gender, ideology, art and visual culture worldwide for over 40 years. Old Mistresses was her first major scholarly publication which has become a classic work of feminist art history.
Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France
Author: Kathleen WellmanPublisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300178859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
Tells the history of the French Renaissance through the lives of its most prominent queens and mistresses.
The Creation of the French Royal Mistress
Author: Tracy AdamsPublisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271086424
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144
Book Description
Kings throughout medieval and early modern Europe had extraconjugal sexual partners. Only in France, however, did the royal mistress become a quasi-institutionalized political position. This study explores the emergence and development of the position of French royal mistress through detailed portraits of nine of its most significant incumbents: Agnès Sorel, Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly, Diane de Poitiers, Gabrielle d’Estrées, Françoise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Françoise d’Aubigné, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, and Jeanne Bécu. Beginning in the fifteenth century, key structures converged to create a space at court for the royal mistress. The first was an idea of gender already in place: that while women were legally inferior to men, they were men’s equals in competence. Because of their legal subordinacy, queens were considered to be the safest regents for their husbands, and, subsequently, the royal mistress was the surest counterpoint to the royal favorite. Second, the Renaissance was a period during which people began to experience space as theatrical. This shift to a theatrical world opened up new ways of imagining political guile, which came to be positively associated with the royal mistress. Still, the role had to be activated by an intelligent, charismatic woman associated with a king who sought women as advisors. The fascinating particulars of each case are covered in the chapters of this book. Thoroughly researched and compellingly narrated, this important study explains why the tradition of a politically powerful royal mistress materialized at the French court, but nowhere else in Europe. It will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the French monarchy, women and royalty, and gender studies.
The Mistresses of Henry VIII
Author: Kelly HartPublisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752462512
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
Seventeen-year-old Henry VIII was 'a youngling, he cares for nothing but girls and hunting.' Over the years, this didn't change much. Henry was considered a demi-god by his subjects, so each woman he chose was someone who had managed to stand out in a crowd of stunning ladies. Looking good was not enough (indeed, many of Henry's lovers were considered unattractive); she had to have something extra special to keep the king's interest. And Henry's women were every bit as intriguing as the man himself. In this book, Henry's mistresses are rescued from obscurity. The sixteenth century was a time of profound changes in religion and society across Europe – and some of Henry's lovers were at the forefront of influencing these events. Kelly Hart gives an excellent insight into the love life of our most popular king, and the twelve women who knew the man behind the mask.
Mistresses and Slaves
Author: Marli Frances WeinerPublisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252066238
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
Marli Weiner challenges much of the received wisdom on the domestic realm of the nineteenth-century southern plantation--a world in which white mistresses and female slaves labored together to provide food, clothing, and medicines to the larger plantation community. Although divided by race, black and white women were joined by common female experiences and expectations of behavior. Because work and gender affected them as much as race, mistresses and female slaves interacted with one another very differently from the ways they interacted with men. Supported by the women's own words, Weiner offers fresh interpretations of the ideology of domesticity that influenced women's race relations before the Civil War, the gradual manner in which they changed during the war, and the harsher behaviors that resulted during Reconstruction. A volume in the series Women in American History, edited by Anne Firor Scott, Nancy A. Hewitt, and Stephanie Shaw
Mistresses
Author: Elizabeth AbbottPublisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1590208765
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 526
Book Description
“A lively and nuanced look at gender roles as they have been revealed by the lives of concubines and mistresses over the centuries” (Kirkus). She exists as both a fictional character and as a flesh-and-blood human being. But who is she, really? Why do women become mistresses, and what is it like to have a private life that is usually also a secret life? Is a mistress merely a wife-in-waiting, or is she the very definition of the emancipated, independent female? Elizabeth Abbott intelligently examines the motives and morals of some of history's most infamous and fascinating women, from antiquity to today. Drawing intimate portraits of those who have—by chance, coercion, or choice—assumed this complex role, Mistresses offers a rich blend of personal biography and cultural insight. “Ms. Abbott is delightfully indiscreet, with an eye for a good story and a colloquial style . . . She has done the ladies a service by bringing them out of the shadows.” —The Economist
Mistresses
Author: Linda PorterPublisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1509877088
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Book Description
According to the great diarist, John Evelyn, Charles II was ‘addicted to women’, and throughout his long reign a great many succumbed to his charms. Clever, urbane and handsome, Charles presided over a hedonistic court, in which licence and licentiousness prevailed. Mistresses is the story of the women who shared Charles’s bed, each of whom wielded influence on both the politics and cultural life of the country. From the young king-in-exile’s first mistress and mother to his first child, Lucy Walter, to the promiscuous and ill-tempered courtier, Barbara Villiers. From Frances Teresa Stuart, ‘the prettiest girl in the world’ to history’s most famous orange-seller, ‘pretty, witty’ Nell Gwynn and to her fellow-actress, Moll Davis, who bore the last of the king’s fifteen illegitimate children. From Louise de Kéroualle, the French aristocrat – and spy for Louis XIV – to the sexually ambiguous Hortense Mancini. Here, too, is the forlorn and humiliated Queen Catherine, the Portuguese princess who was Charles’s childless queen. Drawing on a wide variety of original sources, including material in private archives, Linda Porter paints a vivid picture of these women and of Restoration England, an era that was both glamorous and sordid.
The Mistresses of George I & II
Author: Catherine CurzonPublisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1526762730
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
When George I arrived in England he found a kingdom in turmoil. Mistrustful of the new monarch from Hanover, his subjects met his coronation with riots. At George’s side was his mistress, Melusine von der Schulenberg, whilst his ex-wife languished in prison. Known as the Maypole thanks to her eye-catching figure, Melusine was the king’s confidante for decades. She was a mother to his children and a queen without a crown. George II never forgave his father for tearing him from his mother's arms and he was determined to marry for love, not duty. Though his wife, Caroline of Ansbach, proved to be a politically gifted queen, George II turned to another for affection. She was Henrietta Howard, the impoverished Countess of Suffolk, and she was desperate to escape her brutish husband. As the years passed, the royal affair became a powerplay between king and queen and the woman who was mistress to one and servant to another. Melusine and Henrietta's privileged position made them the envy of every courtier. It also made them a target of jealousy, plotting and ambition. In the tumultuous Georgian court, the bedroom and the throne room weren't so far apart.