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Author Name: Rounding, Virginia
Title: Grandes Horizontales - The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-Century Courtesans
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket
Edition: First Edition; First Printing
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing 2003
ISBN Number: 1-58234-260-1 / 9781582342603
Seller ID: 607
Used, Very Good Condition; Tight Binding; No marks or highlighting; Color Photographs; 6.25 x 9.5"; 337 pages;
(FROM INSIDE COVER) In this lively, thought-provoking book, Virginia Rounding brings to life the glittering world of nineteenth-century Paris and its most distinguished - and declasse - inhabitants. In the reign of emperor Napoleon III, the pampered demimonde became almost indistinguishable from the haut monde, with mythical reputations growing up around its most alluring and favored celebrities. "Grandes Horizontales" examines the lives of four of the era's best-known courtesans, providing a provocative look into the parlors and boudoirs of the women whose lives became legend. Marie Duplessis became the prototype of the virtuous courtesan when Alexandre Dumas fils portrayed her as Marguerite Gautier in La Dame aux camelias. Appollonie Sabatier, known as La Presidente, put men of letters and other arts at ease amidst the gracious manners and bawdy talk of her salon and was immortalized by sculptor August Clesinger and poet Charles Baudelaire. Through prejudiced eyes, the Russian Jew La Paiva appeared intent on preying on rich young men of Paris. Covetous onlookers resented her ability to amass and display great wealth, most notably in the design and building of her opulent hotel in the Champs Elysees. The English beauty who called herself Cora Pearl was another "foreign threat," with her athletic physique, sixty horses, and ability "to make bored men laugh," including Prince Napoleon himself. Artfully weaving together writings from the time as well as the personal letters of the women themselves, Rounding disentangles myth from reality, uncovering the fascinating history of Paris's shadow world and the women and men who lived there.
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10.00 USD
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