Staff Pick
This illuminating biography of Idina Sackville fulfilled my expectations, exploring the desires, wildness, and sadness of a woman enticed by an age of jazz dancing and intoxicants, from heights of euphoric delight to depths of tragedy. Bolter includes letters, diaries, and beautiful photos, and is exquisitely written. Lovely. I almost feel like I knew her. Recommended By Adrienne C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
She was irresistible. She inspired fiction, fantasy, legend, and art.
Some say she was “the Bolter” of Nancy Mitfords novel The Pursuit of Love. She “played” Iris Storm in Michael Arlens celebrated novel about fashionable Londons lost generation, The Green Hat, and Greta Garbo played her in A Woman of Affairs, the movie made from Arlens book. She was painted by Orpen; photographed by Beaton; she was the model for Molyneauxs slinky wraparound dresses that became the look fo the age—the Jazz Age.
Though not conventionally beautiful (she had a “shot-away chin”), Idina Sackville dazzled men and women alike, and made a habit of marrying whenever she fell in love—five husbands in all and lovers without number.
Hers was the age of bolters, and Idina was the most celebrated of them all.
Her father was the eighth Earl De La Warr. In a society that valued the antiquity of families and their money, hers was as old as a British family could be (eight hundred years earlier they had followed William the Conqueror from Normandy and been given enough land to live on forever . . . another ancestor, Lord De La Warr, rescued the starving Jamestown colonists in 1610, became governor of Virginia, and gave his name to the state of Delaware). Her mothers money came from “trade”; Idinas maternal grandfather had employed more men (85,000) than the British army and built one third of the worlds railroads.
Idinas first husband was a dazzling cavalry officer, one of the youngest, richest, and best-looking of the available bachelors, with “two million in cash.” They had a seven-story pied-à-terre on Connaught Place overlooking Marble Arch and Hyde Park, as well as three estates in Scotland. Idina had everything in place for a magnificent life, until the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand caused the newlyweds world—the world theyd assumed would last forever—to collapse in less than a year.
Like Mitfords Bolter, young Idina Sackville left her husband and children. But in truth it was her husband who wrecked their marriage, making Idina more a boltee than a bolter. Soon she found a lover of her own—the first of many—and plunged into a Jazz Age haze of morphine. She became a full-blown flapper, driving about London in her Hispano-Suiza, and pusing the boundaries of behavior to the breaking point. British society amy have adored eccentrics whose differences celebrated the values they cherished, but it did not embrace those who upset the order of things. And in 1918, just after the Armistice was signed, Idina Sackville bolted from her life in England and, setting out with her second husband, headed for Mombasa, in search of new adventure.
Frances Osborne deftly tells the tale of her great-grandmother using Idinas never-before-seen letters; the diaries of Idinas first husband, Euan Wallace; and stories from family members. Osborne follows Idina from the champagne breakfasts and thé dansants of lost-generation England to the foothills of Kenyas Aberdare moutnains and the wild abandon of her role in Kenyas disintegration postwar upper-class life. A parade of lovers, a murdered husband, chaos everywhere—as her madcap world of excess darkened and crumbled around her.
Review
"
Love, Fiercely is an exquisitely-rendered portrait of passion and privilege in the Gilded Age."
and#8212;Deborah Davis, author of Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X Demonstrating the same flare as in her previous biography, Zimmerman (The Women of the House: How a Colonial She-Merchant Built a Mansion, a Fortune, and a Dynasty) pays respect to the lives and times of Edith Minturn Stokes and Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes. Edith and Newton, as he was called, who married in 1895, were born in New York to immense privilege and became patrons of the arts and advocates for immigrant rights. The two knew each other as children and eventually fell in love. Newton, a respected architect in his own right, pulled together a massive multivolume documentary history, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, and Edith worked for many charitable organizations. Zimmerman chronicles their personal lives and love, from the heights of financial success to the depths of deteriorating health and wealth, while also encapsulating the era in which they lived. VERDICT With an impressive amount of research behind every page, Zimmerman manages to capture the sweeping drama of the turn of the century as well as the compelling story of a couple who knew how to love, fiercely. Her superb pacing and gripping narrative will appeal to all who enjoy history, biography, and real-life romance.--Library Journal
Synopsis
Published in England to unanimous acclaim (Frances Osborne has brilliantly captured not only one woman's life but an entire lost society--Amanda Foreman): the life of the beautiful, fearless Idina Sackville--descendant of one of England's oldest families--who was the cause of one of the great scandals of Edwardian England.
She was irresistible: slight, girlish, well dressed, and though not conventionally beautiful (she had a shotaway chin), she dazzled men and women alike. She made a habit of marrying (five times) whenever she fell in love and taking lovers whenever she wanted. But her notoriety was sealed when she left her husband and two young children in search of a new adventurous life and bolted to Kenya, where in the 1920s she became known as the high priestess of the Happy Valley set.
Osborne deftly pieces together the tale of her great-grandmother using Idina's never-before-seen letters; the diaries of Idina's first husband, Euan Wallace; and stories from family members. Osborne follows Idina from the champagne breakfasts and thes dansants of lost generation England to the endless rounds of parties and foothills of Kenya's Aberdare mountains, to the wild abandon of her role in Kenya's disintegrating postwar upperclass life--her parade of lovers, a murdered husband, chaos everywhere--as her own madcap world of excess darkened and crumbled around her.
Synopsis
The Gilded Age New York love storyand#160;of aand#160;beautiful heiress who fought forand#160; women's rights and a wealthy young architect, who were captured in the John Singer Sargent painting Mr. and Mrs. I.N. Phelps Stokes.
Synopsis
The New York love story of a beautiful heiress and a wealthy young architect, captured in a famous John Singer Sargent painting In Love, Fiercely Jean Zimmerman re-creates the glittering world of Edith Minturn and Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes. Contemporaries of the Astors and Vanderbilts, they grew up together along the shores of bucolic Staten Island, linked by privilegeand#8212;her grandparents built the worldand#8217;s fastest clipper ship, his family owned most of Murray Hill. Theirs was a world filled with mansions, balls, summer homes, and extended European vacations.
Newton became a passionate preserver of New York history and published the finest collection of Manhattan maps and views in a six-volume series. Edith became the face of the age when Daniel Chester French sculpted her for Chicagoand#8217;s Columbian Exposition, a colossus intended to match the Statue of Libertyand#8217;s grandeur. Together Edith and Newton battled on behalf of New Yorkand#8217;s poor and powerless as reformers who never themselves wanted for anything. Through it all, they sustained a strong-rooted marriage.
From the splendid cottages of the Berkshires to the salons of 1890s Paris, Love, Fiercely is the real story of a world long relegated to fiction.
About the Author
Jean Zimmerman is the author ofandnbsp;fourandnbsp;previous books, including The Women of the House: How a Colonial She-Merchant Built a Mansion, a Fortune and a Dynasty. Sheandnbsp;earned an MFA in writing from the Columbia University School of the Arts and has published her poetry widely in literary magazines. She lives with her family in Westchester County, New York.
Table of Contents
Prologueand#160;xi
Part One
Enchanted Woodsand#160;3
Flying Cloudand#160;13
Madison to the Riverand#160;34
Big Maryand#160;52
The Howling Swelland#160;69
The Personal as the Politicaland#160;82
Grand Mistakesand#160;94
Rich and Romanticand#160;105
Part Two
A Pleasure to Paint Her Portraitand#160;119
The American Girl Herselfand#160;136
For Richer or Poorerand#160;158
Smaller Castlesand#160;181
Pretty Mannersand#160;192
Part Three
Silent Bearers of Many a Half-Read Messageand#160;205
A Fine Object Lesson in Good Constructionand#160;220
Something in the Nature of the Marvelousand#160;244
No Other City Will Live in the Future
as New York Willand#160;261
Our Goddessand#160;278
Epilogueand#160;285
Select Bibliographyand#160;290
Acknowledgmentsand#160;296
Indexand#160;298