The Mistress: Histories, Myths and Interpretations of the "Other Woman" - Hardcover

Griffin, Victoria

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582340536 ISBN 13: 9781582340531

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 1999

Synopsis

As long as there is marriage, there will also be the Mistress. Why then, does our society still behave as if marital infidelity were some unfathomable aberration?

Mythology is rich with mistresses-- both divine and mortal--some who have played their roles cunningly and to perfection, and some who have destroyed themselves and all around them. Famous mistresses have not only graced literature but have written it. Courtesans have been a feature of royal courts throughout history. And, whether or not we admit it, or feign nave ignorance, mistresses are women we know, here and now.

Victoria Griffin, herself a mistress, brings her steady yet startling focus on the mistresses in history and culture, past and present: from Camille Claudel to Monica Lewinsky, from Madame de Pompadour to Simone de Beauvoir, from George Eliot to Pamela Harriman. It is a subject as rich and diverse as history itself, alive with memorable characters. The Mistress will provoke and delight in equal measure.

About this title

About the Author

Victoria Griffin is a writer, poet, and translator living in London. This is her first book.

Reviews

Griffin, a writer, poet, translator, and mistress of an important British financier, has crafted a readable but uneven history of the institution of mistresses. Drawing on myth and fact, her examples attempt to explain the characteristics of the "mistress type," the relationship between husband and wife, and society's ideals of propriety and fidelity in marriage. Simultaneously, she uses the narrative as a personal examination of her notions about being a mistress. Consequently, readers are unable to tell what is serious psychohistorical research and what is colored by Griffin's own feelings and individual experiences. Too, Griffin does not include examples from non-Western cultures, such as the geisha. Footnoted sporadically, her narrative depends upon secondary texts and published letters and diaries. This is interesting reading for a general audience, but scholars and students should use the standard women's histories (such as Olwen Hufton's The Prospect Before Her, Knopf, 1996) or the numerous books that deal with the mistress in a certain era, place, or by type (e.g., royal, presidential).AJenny Lynn Presnell, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1582340536
• ISBN 13: 9781582340531
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320