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Harriette Wilson's Memoirs: The Memoirs of the Reigning Courtesan of Regency London Paperback – 9 Jan. 2003

by Harriette Wilson (Author), Lesley Blanch (Editor)

4.2 33 ratings

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Nineteenth century London produced a fine flowering of eccentrics and individualists. Chief among them was Harriette Wilson, whose patrons included most of the distinguished men of the day, from the Duke of Wellington to Lord Byron. She held court in a box at the opera, attended by statesmen, poets, national heroes, aristocrats, members of the beau monde, and students who hoped to be immortalised by her glance. She wrote these memoirs in middle age, when she had fallen out of favour. She advised her former lovers that for 200 she would edit them out. 'Publish and be damned!' retorted the Duke of Wellington. The result is an elegant, zestful, unrepentant memoir, which offers intimately detailed portraits of the Regency demimonde. First published in 1957.

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Print length

480 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date

9 Jan. 2003
Dimensions

14.61 x 2.54 x 21.59 cm
ISBN-10

1842126326
ISBN-13

978-1842126325
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Frances Wilson
14
Paperback
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Product description

From the Back Cover

Harriette Wilson's Memoirs These are the memoirs of the reigning courtesan of Regency London whose patrons included most of the distinguished men of her day, from the Duke of Wellington to Lord Byron. Hard-pressed for money in middle age, she sold her memoirs after offering to edit out any lovers who paid her the sum of 200 Publish and be damned! cried the Duke of Wellington. She did and she was. Edited and Introduced by Lesley Blanch, author of The Wilder Shores of Love.

About the Author

Lesley Blanch was born in London, England, and has travelled over most of the globe. She began her career as a painter, illustrator and theatrical designer, but in 1937 transferred her allegiance to journalism and became features editor of London VOGUE. Her essays and articles have since appeared in most of Britain's leading periodicals, including the OBSERVER and the NEW STATESMAN. Harriette Wilson (1786-1846) was one of the most glamorous and intelligent women of her age. She allowed herself to be seduced by Lord Craven at the age of 15 and rapidly acquired a string of rich and powerful lovers, chief among whom was the Duke of Wellington. After retiring from the courtesan life at the age of 35 she wrote a number of novels as well as her scandalous MEMOIRS. Lesley Blanch, the editor of the present volume, was born in London, England, and has travelled over most of the globe. Her essays and articles have appeared in most of Britain's leading periodicals, including the OBSERVER and the NEW STATESMAN. She now lives in France.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Weidenfeld & Nicolson; New edition (9 Jan. 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1842126326
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1842126325
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.61 x 2.54 x 21.59 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,267,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 735 in Historical Essays, Journals, Letters & True Accounts
- 3,899 in British Historical Social & Urban History Biographies
- 6,283 in British Historical Military Biographies

Customer reviews:
4.2 33 ratings

About the author

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Lesley Blanch

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Lesley Blanch was a cult literary figure who influenced and inspired generations of writers, readers and critics. Her lifelong passion was for Russia, the Balkans and the Middle East. At heart a nomad, she spent the greater part of her life travelling about those remote areas her books record so vividly.

Born in London in 1904, Blanch’s first career was as a book illustrator and caricaturist, and scenic and costume designer for the theatre, before turning to writing. While her reputation now rests primarily on three works of non-fiction − 'The Wilder Shores of Love', 'Journey into the Mind’s Eye' and 'The Sabres of Paradise' − her early journalism brings to life the artistic melting pot that was London between the wars, and her books, something of the Middle East as it once was, before conflict and turmoil became the essence of relations between the Arab World and the West.

She left England in 1946, never to return, except as a visitor. Her marriage to Romain Gary, the French novelist and diplomat, afforded her many years of happy wanderings. After their divorce, in 1963, Blanch was seldom at her Paris home longer than to repack.

Blanch was well ahead of her time and prescient in the way she attempted to bridge West and East – especially the West and Islam – a topic that is highly relevant today. She was modern and free, with tremendous wit and style; and a traveller who took risks and relished writing about her adventures. Her life reads like a novel and sets her apart as being a true original. She died in Menton in the South of France, age 103.

Her posthumous memoirs ON THE WILDER SHORES OF LOVE: A BOHEMIAN LIFE are published by Virago, Little Brown.

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J. A. Johnson

Hilarious!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 May 2014

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You know when you watch a period drama and women are all fluttering eyelashes, coy looks and decorum?
The hell they were! They were a fabulously b****y bawdy sarcastic bunch.
I nearly had an attack of the vapours at some points.
I had read the biography of Harriete Wilson ' The Courtesans Revenge' and realised that the most interesting bits of that book were the extracts from Harriettes' own memoirs so I duly ordered it and I was right.
She's a joy. Sharp, funny, wicked and a contrast of ruthlessness tempered with kindness.
Men paid large sums of money not to be mentioned in her memoirs.
The one's that wouldn't cough up such as the 'Publish and be damned' Duke of Wellington make for great reading but how I wish we could read her comments on the one's that did submit to her blackmail.
They must have had an awful lot to hide.
Harriette,( who when her younger sister Sophie took up with the love of Harriettes life Lord Ponsonby) would ensure that she sat in the opera box above Sophie's ....just so she could spit on her head.
Great character!

6 people found this helpful

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N. Wilson

Partly Raised Curtain ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 June 2012

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We often understand less about the past and people in it than we think we do; here we are in the period when Jane Austen and Lord Byron were writing ... and many others ... we have a good deal of correspondence from Wellington's soldiers in the Peninsula ... and much, much more. Novelists, poets, very ordinary people, great people; plain official records. I am no expert on the period and for me it can all seem a bit too easily familiar: that can be deceptive. Harriette Wilson was clearly a lady of some wit and imagination, as well as ambition and, if she is to be fully believed, a fairly remarkable range of acquaintance in the upper ranks of power and influence in society. The result, as you read carefully, is that her memoirs are both both fascinating and elusive. She was not writing just for herself and for pleasure, but for profit, for deliberate white mail (not exactly "black mail", which is for cattle, but certainly for silver) and one must judge how much that she writes is barbed, pointed and ex parte. One wonders how far, in her anecdotes and sprightly tales of her Cyprian social realm, she is telling the tale unembroidered and is truly revealing herself. (Indeed, was much editing done for her?) People in the past, however familiar they seem, are often more remote than we think: here we are hearing a genuine voice of someone clearly lively, witty and intelligent - and also clearly capable of quite fierce and cutting action in a far from wholly conventional way of life. You hear the voice, but would have to meet the lady herself face to face to judge properly what sort of person she really was. How selfish or generous would you find her in fact? Certainly she seems witty, and you leave the book feeling a real concern and affection for her. As I say, I am not expert enough to appreciate her context reliably, but there is indeed much here to appreciate. One wonders what may have been in the passages she was paid not to publish! Harriette Wilson's Memoirs: The Memoirs of the Reigning Courtesan of Regency London

7 people found this helpful

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Joe MCMXLVII

Publish and be damned

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2017

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Harriet Wilson tells us all about the mores and morality of our esteemed upper class. She turned out to be shameless but that doesn't devalue her account, it merely explains why she wrote it.

Once you've read this book, you'll never be able to perceive the charming Regency image on a tin of Quality Street in the same light again.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2017

nice

A courtesan and the largest blackmail in the Regency

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 October 2020

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A very good book. The introduction is useful. Read The Courtesan's Revenge by Frances Wilson about some of the fiction presented in the memoirs. The women aren't related. We don't know why Hariette called herself Wilson even.

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Need me some tunes

Harriette Wilson's Memoirs

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 November 2010

This is a lovely book written by a lovely, articulate woman who both took advantage of her age and was taken advantage of by it. The editor provides an insightful amount of front matter tying together some social, political and sociological information to give a setting for Harriette's story. I write Regency romances, and this material was wonderfully helpful in providing insights into the age, and particularly into the wealthy, titled men fortunate enough to thrive in it and know Harriette. The book was also an interesting portrait of the difference between a woman who was purposefully attractive on many levels--a true courtesan--and what modern women do with their gender role. It should also be noted that Harriette manages to prose on at great length without ever once lapsing into the truly intimate. She hints, she innuendos (spending time with the Duke of Wellington was described as "very uphill work,") but she never quite opens the bedroom door. A lovely, lovely book.
Grace Burrowes

3 people found this helpful

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LeahArmstrong

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on 14 February 2015

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Great price, great condition, and fast delivery. Much appreciated!

2 people found this helpful

Linore Rose Burkard

Fascinating, if flawed, account of life in the Regency

Reviewed in the United States on 20 April 2006

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Harriette Wilson thought herself genteel. Indeed, she was educated as such, having the usual accomplishments as well as a great command of the French language. Furthermore, she displays some taste in her living arrangements, her likes, her preferences, even, for men. Additionally, her memoirs are full of shrewd descriptions and peeks into daily life that are very well-written, if at times cryptic. But she was also perhaps the "Greatest Courtesan of her Age," as the title of the book asserts. One of the main problems in life for Harriette, then, is that her way of life (living under the protection of a man without the benefit of marriage to him) was simply not, in any way, considered "genteel" to those living about her.

I take issue with the claim of her being the "greatest courtesan," unless one understands it to mean only the most popular; most notorious; most famous in her day. She lacks the claim to greatness, in my opinion, because of her failure to do better for herself, despite having had many of the day's brightest stars as her "protectors" at various times in her life.

There are so many angles a large work like this could be approached from, that I am uncertain which to address. What, really, constitutes gentlemanly behavior, for example? It is gentlemen of the highest rank who profess to love Harriette and then later treat her the shabbiest.

Or, should we discuss the evident double-standard that enabled said "gentlemen" to avail themselves of Harriette's bedroom (if she allowed), and then go dine with the Regent; while Harriette was of course never invited to or would have been allowed to attend, gatherings of the ton because of her "profession." In other words, a man could be as profligate as he chose, and still retain the esteem and respect of the world, while a woman had to bear the shame. (Not that I am a proponent of Harriette's chosen lifestyle; far from it. But the double-standard is often what kept these ladies from becoming respectable, forcing them to maintain the status quo if they wanted their next meal.)

One flaw in the book is that we have no way of knowing how it was edited, whether for content, verity, or otherwise (perhaps unavoidable in a memoir). The author never states a single date, not even the year in question, which the editor might have pressed her for. This was irritating. In addition, we find out in the introduction by Lesley Blanch that Harriette offered to keep the names of gentlemen out of the book if they paid her a reasonable sum; so there's no way to know who is missing from the account. (However, those who do appear are quite enough for any woman, one thinks!)

Finally, there are practically no details about events of the day, unless it were a fete, or a ball, or something which occurred at the opera. Nevertheless, if you are a fan of history, of the Regency, of social manners, or memoirs; if you are a Regency romance reader, historical fiction reader, or student of the times, then you will enjoy what the book does have to offer. Which is, an account of one woman's life, written without a great deal of introspection and very little second-guessing.

There are times when Harriette Wilson was impossibly mean, "outrageous" you might say; She will both delight and horrify you with her behaviour. But you will be the richer for having read of it. Her frank discussions with men were probably one of the things that kept them coming back to her, and it is precisely this frankness that makes the book so enjoyable. It's a sad commentary that properly bred young women were not supposed to engage in such frank "vulgar" talk, but that of course the men they married hungered for the honesty and transparency that Harriette seldom withheld. As Prince Esterhazy tellingly exclaims to her: 'Oh, Harriette! a wife is altogether so very different from what is desirable, no sort of comparison can be made with them." "They" are the young innocents he wished to seduce, seeking help from Harriette, which she firmly refused to supply.

I underlined a great deal of the text in this book, always seeking new little tidbits and facts of the day, or even common expressions, for my own Regency writing. No matter whether you are new to the period or an old familiar friend, you will find much here to fascinate. Insights to all the famous men she had dealings with, is just the start.
Linore Rose Burkard

[...]

Inspirational Regency Romance

16 people found this helpful

Sarah

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on 22 February 2017

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Very interesting book.

C. F.

Salty 19th century tell-all, but for historians/19th century fans

Reviewed in the United States on 23 December 2015

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This is a dishy, gossip-laden tell-all... from the early 1800s, Written in the dialogue of that era. Unless you're into history/the 19th century or a re-enactor, you might not get it and find it boring. Takes a chapter or two to get into the language, but then I absolutely loved it. Harriette is kind of an idiot, but highly entertaining and not stupid. She just lives her life as she pleases, dating various men/patrons, and often tells people to shove it. One of my favorite moments was when some married tramp kept sending Harriette's boyfriend love letters, and finally she'd had enough and sent the woman a note asking where she'd bought such soft paper since it made such excellent curl paper for her hair [BURN]. No happy ending, as there never was for courtesans and women who aged out of their profession, but very entertaining. My one major complaint is that Harriette wrote this book when she found herself short on money, and went to former lovers and patrons [many of high social standing] with the offer of omitting any notice of them if they paid her before it was published. While I get it-- she needed money to live- I felt it really crippled this book as a memoir since it felt very whitewashed as a result and not a true account of who was actually involved/there. Lame.

5 people found this helpful

Leslie W.

I received a used book. I didn't order a used book.

Reviewed in the United States on 15 February 2023

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The book is a used book. In not good shape. I wasn't aware of ordering it used. I want a new never used book.
I

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Harriette Wilson's Memoirs: The Memoirs of the Reigning Courtesan of Regency London Paperback – 9 Jan. 2003

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