Synopses & Reviews
They were homeless wanderers, prostitutes, orphans, and factory girls. They hurdled terrible obstacles, reinvented themselves as men, goddesses, witches, and princesses to become legends in their own right as England rose to world power. No other group of people rivaled their inventiveness or their grip on the nation's imagination. Debbie Lee unfolds the small stories of six women, with a cast of supporting characters such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Benjamin Franklin, Stamford Raffles, and Napoleon, against the grand narrative of England's eighteenth-century empire building.
Romantic Liars: Obscure Women who Became Impostors and Challenged an Empire is a meticulously researched, spellbinding tale of tragedy, transformation and triumph in the age of reason.
Review
“ Extraordinary . . Lee is alive to the sensational aspects of many of these tales, which are told in an easy and informal style.” -- Choice
Synopsis
Lee unfolds the stories of six women with a cast of supporting characters such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Benjamin Franklin, Stamford Raffles and Napoleon against the grand narrative of England's 18th century empire building. This book is a meticulously researched, spellbinding tale of tragedy, transformation and triumph in the age of reason.
Synopsis
The stories of six eighteenth-century women who rose to the top of British society through self-invention.
About the Author
Debbie Lee teaches at Washington State University. She is the author of
Literature, Exploration, and Science: Bodies of Knowledge (2004) and
Slavery and the Romantic Imagination published (2002 and 2004).
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations * Preface * Crossings * The Goddess and the Anorexic * The Gentleman, the Witch, and the Beauty * The Governor and the Princess * Afterward * Notes * Bibliography