Description
Lillie Langtry, mistress of Edward VII, was surrounded by scandal, luxury and gossip; but this biography goes beyond these outward trappings to lift the masks that Oscar Wilde, her friend and mentor, taught her to wear. It is not so much a life as a series of lives, as Lillie reinvented herself.
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Lillie Langtry - 'Jersey Lillie' - born a provincial in 1853, was catapulted by her beauty into the highest society London had to offer. Surrounded by scandal, luxury and gossip, she became the mistress of the Prince of Wales, the goddess of Bohemia and the protegee of Oscar Wilde. After four years, she disappeared, bankrupt and pregnant with an illegitimate child.When she resurfaced, guided by Wilde, it was with the masks of several new and invented selves for protection. This book attempts to unravel her complex fictions about herself, to find the person behind the actress, gambler and iconoclast that she then became. At its centre are the previously unpublished letters which she wrote to her childhood friend and secret lover, Arthur Jones, during her period of crisis and collapse.
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