Susan Hated Literature

Harriette Wilson, the woman who blackmailed the king
Author: Frances Wilson
ISBN: 0571205240 DDC: 941.073092
See also: LibraryThing ; Other reviews

Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs omit both time and place; there are no addresses given, no locations described, no elections, diseases, or wars. “Dates make ladies nervous and stories dry,” she wrote.

It has taken me quite a while to finish this book. Usually that isn’t a very good sign, it means I’ve not really being all that interested in it, but usually I don’t read non-fiction. Whenever I do it always takes me longer to get through.

This is the story of Harriette Wilson who grew up to become a courtesan in Regency London. The woman whose Memoirs caused a scandal, and raised her quite a bit of cash, as those named began to buy her silence. But as well as that it is a story of how few options there were available to women at that time. It was a case of be married or be damned. Harriette seems to have chosen the damned option. It was her book that led to the, now famous, if incorrect line by Wellington, “publish and be damned”.

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Tags: 7 Stars, 941.073092, biography, blackmail, Britain, Britain - 1700s, Britain - 1800s, Britain - Georgian, Britain - Regency, British royalty - George III, C18th, C19th, England - 1786-1846, Frances Wilson, Harriette Wilson, history, The courtesan's revenge, The courtesan's revenge: Harriette Wilson, the woman who blackmailed the king, women, women in society

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ISBN: 0349114471

On the morning of December 15th, a day of bleak skies heralding snow, a box-cart rattled into Bolt Court and drew up outside Number 8.

This novel may possibly have had a greater impact on me if I knew anything about the life and times of Samuel Johnson apart from the fact that he wrote a dictionary, and of course that the Life of Samuel Johnson was written by Boswell. But I’ve never read it, and so am unfamiliar with Johnson, apart from the broadest of strokes. But while I may be lacking some of that knowledge I still really enjoyed this book.

We see a much different Johnson here than the one I’ve heard of, not a lot of genius showing, more depression and self-absorption.

The Queeney of the title is a child for much of the book, her mother and father have, in many ways, taken Johnson into their family and it is through this family, the Thrale’s that we see Johnson.

There are also letters interspersed with the story, Queeney’s written in adulthood to a cousin looking for information about Johnson. But the main part of the book is not specifically from Queeney’s POV, and this allows us to learn how wrong a lot of what Queeney thought about her mother Hester, was wrong.

This is an amusing little book, full of lines that’ll make you smile. Easy to read, and full of insights and interesting sentences. However, I never really got a sense of time from the book. The characters could have been from any era, not just that of Georgian England. Still, well worth a read.

Crushed, it had none the less occurred to her how curious it was that, in order to express themselves, great men constantly relied on the thoughts of those long dead.

‘The word was villainous,’ Johnson said, ‘and it was not the word that was difficult, merely that my lips refused to shape it.’

Other Reviews: Guardian | Thrale.com | My Own Private Book Club

Tags: 7 Stars, According to Queeney, amusing, Beryl Bainbridge, biography, Britain - Georgian, C18th, fictional bio, historical fiction, Samuel Johnson

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