Margot at War: Love and Betrayal in Downing Street, 1912-1916 - Couverture souple

De Courcy, Anne

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0297869868 ISBN 13 : 9780297869863

Editeur : W&N, 2014

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

As I read with increasing amazement at these carryings-on, the thought kept intruding: this is a plot that Downton Abbey would die for! ... Anne de Courcy keeps this steaming, erotic merry-go-round whirling with admirable skill. Using Margot's diaries and a wealth of letters and other sources, she brings those fraught days of war alive, weaving them into their context with an immediacy of unexpected detail ... This book makes you feel you are there watching the tears fall - especially Margot's - into the emotional cauldron bubbling out of control (Peter Lewis DAILY MAIL)

Margot Asquith's sharp humour, modern style, intelligence and wealth fascinated men... Anne de Courcy has a firm grasp of politics, an acute eye for social detail and a keen perception of Margot's pains and pleasures. Her narrative is concise and compelling. (Iain Finlayson THE TIMES)

De Courcy, author of the celebrated The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj, indulges us with generous quotes from contemporary correspondence and detailed observation, describing life at a time of turbulent change through engaging anecdotes and descriptions (Elizabeth Freemantle SUNDAY EXPRESS)

A proper sex in high places scandal... Though Margot Asquith, nee Tennant, is its main character, her husband's scandalous obsession with young Venetia Stanley is inevitably centre stage (Andy McSmith THE INDEPENDENT 'Books of the Year')

A superb evocation of an extraordinary time (CHOICE Book of the Month)

Fascinating ... Anne de Courcy is sympathetic to her subject. She's a journalist with a keen eye for detail and no-nonsense directness (Melanie McDonagh THE TABLET)

Covers everything from Asquith's infidelity to politics and parties (CATHOLIC HERALD)

It conveys Margot's milieu with a nice touch and takes time away from this enclosed self-regarding world to give us vivid sharp vignettes of the harder times being experienced by other classes. De Courcy records very well Margot's tortured jealousy, not only of her husband's dalliance with Venetia Stanley but of his daughter Violet's almost incestuous passion for her father (Ferdinand Mount LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS)

A love triangle that nearly brought down the British government is at the heart of Margot at War by Anne de Courcy. Margot Asquith, whose husband was Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916, is the star of this riveting biography about war, love, marriage and secret goings-on at 10 Downing Street (GOOD HOUSEKEEPING)

Margot scandalised society. She refused chaperonage and said what she thought. Plain, with a broken nose from hunting, she dressed beautifully, and was immensely rich when she married Herbert Henry Asquith, subsidising his love of luxury... The research is impressive and the eventful historical context covered with a light touch. Enlightening, especially on Asquith's intractable opposition to the suffragettes. (Jackie Wilkin WI LIFE)

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit, style and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last five years at Number 10 were a period of intense emotional and political turmoil in her private and public life.

In 1912, when Anne de Courcy's book opens, rumblings of discontent and cries for social reform were encroaching on all sides - from suffragettes, striking workers and Irish nationalists. Against this background of a government beset with troubles, the Prime Minister fell desperately in love with his daughter's best friend, Venetia Stanley; to complicate matters, so did his Private Secretary. Margot's relationship with her husband was already bedevilled by her stepdaughter's jealous, almost incestuous adoration of her father. The outbreak of the First World War only heightened these swirling tensions within Downing Street.

Drawing on unpublished material from personal papers and diaries, Anne de Courcy vividly recreates this extraordinary time when the Prime Minister's residence was run like an English country house, with socialising taking precedence over politics, love letters written in the cabinet room and gossip and state secrets exchanged over the bridge table.

By 1916, when Asquith was forced out of office, everything had changed. For the country as a whole, for those in power, for a whole stratum of society, but especially for the Asquiths and their circle, it was the end of an era. Life inside Downing Street would never be the same again.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: W&N
• Date d'édition: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0297869868
• ISBN 13: 9780297869863
• Reliure: Paperback
• Nombre de pages: 384