By Janet Gleeson
Rated 4 Stars
It is an account of the life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of the more well known Georgiana, Dutchess of Devonshire. I have been reading on this book for a while as I had to take a break in the middle of it because her life is such a train wreck and I was getting very annoyed by her consistent self destructive behavior. But it is very well written and contains a wealth of details about the Regency era that Georgette Heyer never mentions
Below is a better description of the book that I copied from Amazon. I think what blew me totally away and was the reason I had to put the book down and take a little rest was when Gleeson wrote that at one point Georgiana had run up 100,000 pounds in gambling debts and that in today's money it would be 6 MILLION pounds or converted to US dollars roughly 12 MILLION dollars! I found that beyond shocking. And guess what, it didn't stop her, or Harriet who was almost as bad. Me, I get in a snit if I lose $10 on the nickel slots.
"The first biography of Lady Harriet Spencer, ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, and devoted sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Harriet Spencer was one of the most glamorous, influential, and notorious aristocrats of the Regency period. Intelligent, attractive, and eager to please, at nineteen she married an aloof, distant relative; the only trait they shared was an unhealthy love of gambling. Harriet began a series of illicit dalliances, including one with the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Then she met Lord Granville Leveson Gower, handsome and twelve years her junior. Their years-long affair resulted in the birth of two children, and concealing both pregnancies from her husband required great skill. Harriet was an eyewitness to the French Revolution; traveled through war-torn Europe during the time of Napoleon; quarreled with Byron when he pursued her daughter; and became one of the leading female political activists of her day.--From publisher description."
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