The First Lady Diana: Lady Diana Spencer 1710-1735 - Hardcover

Massey, Victoria

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1902809017 ISBN 13: 9781902809014

Publisher: Allison and Busby, 2001

Synopsis

Lady Diana Spencer, of Althorp and London, tall and beautiful, a lover of music and the arts, treasured by every young aristocrat, earmarked for marriage to the Prince of Wales, haunted by the death of loved ones, and destined to die at a tragically early age.

But this Lady Diana, in a life which was uncannily similar to the most recent holder of her title, lived nearly 300 years ago.

In this entertaining and informative biography the reader watches Lady Diana grow up, follows her education, her training for the aristocracy and shares her passion for art and music. Her marriage to Lord John Russell; their elevation to the title of Duke and Duchess of Bedford; the sad death of Lady Diana`s first child, and her subsequent miscarriages; her early death are all chronicled in this deeply researched and empathetic biography. This first Lady Diana was a captivating, caring beauty whose untimely death, after such a short, vivacious life, was deeply mourned. Readers will be as fascinated with the life of Diana of the early 1700s as they were with the late Princess of Wales and a study of this life can be the means by which many will be able to appreciate the history of eighteenth-century Britain.

About this title

About the Author:

Victoria Massey was educated in the Wirral and at the Liverpool and Camberwell schools of art and then worked at Sadlers Wells Theatre. Her early writing was for girls’ magazines before her first book, One Child’s War was published, the Sunday Express describing it as ‘eloquent, joyous and heart-rending.’ Victoria Massey lives in Bedfordshire.

From Publishers Weekly:

While many have been captivated by the story of Diana, Princess of Wales, few may realize that her life paralleled in notable ways that of an ancestor who bore the same name. Like her famous 20th-century namesake, the 18th-century Lady Diana Spencer was born into a prominent family of British aristocrats, made a brilliant marriage and died young. Massey (an artist and author and illustrator of girls' stories) draws on a wealth of letters and historical documents to reconstruct in detail the life of "dear little Di" (as her family called her, although she grew to be quite tall). Orphaned young, Diana was taken in and raised by her grandmother, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who saw to it that she was well married at the then late age of 21 to the Duke of Bedford. One of the most notorious figures of the day, the duchess was tremendously rich, politically powerful and brashly outspoken, and by this account, Diana grew up very much in her shadow--so much so that, despite Massey's efforts to keep her narrative centered on its ostensible subject, it is actually Sarah who becomes its most compelling and well-rounded character. Diana herself remains an enigma: described as warm-hearted and generous by some contemporaries and vain and insincere by others, she apparently died (at 25, of tuberculosis) before developing much of a personality in her own right. Since Massey commendably refuses to embellish upon the known facts of Diana's life by surmising her thoughts and feelings, she produces the story of an era in the history of the British aristocracy rather than of an individual. Photos. (Feb.) chronicled in Amanda Foreman's Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (1999).

Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Allison and Busby
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1902809017
• ISBN 13: 9781902809014
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256