Aristocrats

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Sisters Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox were great-grandchildren of Charles II, and their extraordinary lives spanned the period from 1740 to 1832. Caroline eloped with an ambitious politician, Henry Fox; her son, Charles James Fox, was the most celebrated opposition politician of his century. Emily first married the senior peer of Ireland, but after having 19 children she scandalized society by marrying their humble Scottish tutor. Louisa and Sarah led equally tumultuous lives. Underlying the drama of the Lennox sisters, which is related in this biography, is a story of everyday life. Thousands of letters, scores of pictures (many of them reproduced in the book), diaries and household accounts, show how they lived their lives both practically and emotionally. They wrote about love, marriage, politics, books, scandals, food, clothes, pregnancy and childbirth.

Promotional Information

'Aristocrats is my favourite kind of history: on the one hand it's lucid and scholarly, on the other hand it reads like a novel. I hated to finish it' - Antonia Fraser

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About the Author

Stella Tillyard has been described by Simon Schama as 'dazzling...a phenomenally gifted writer'. Her books include Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox,1740-1832; Citizen Lord: Edward Fitzgerald, 1763-1798, A Royal Affair: George III and his Troublesome Siblings, and, most recently, Tides of War, longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. She has lived in the USA and Italy and now lives in London.

Reviews

"Engrossing" -- Karen Robinson Sunday Times "A dazzling achievement: an extraordinary story told by a phenomenally gifted writer. Within its gripping narrative lies a wonderfully rich reconstruction of the world of the Hanoverian elite, its virtues and vices wittily and movingly related" -- Simon Schama "Aristocrats is a wonderful panorama of a book" -- Victoria Glendinning Literary Review "Their story is on one level as hard to put down as any of the fashionable French novels that were Caroline's favourite reading. On another it re-explores a century's history seen, so to speak, inside out through the eyes of four remarkable women who started young, lived long, did much, wrote more and have found a scarcely less remarkable biographer in Stella Tillyard" -- Hilary Spurling Daily Telegraph "Tillyard's moving and often brilliant book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of aristocracy and enormously entertaining reading for everyone else" -- Linda Colley Observer