Diana Souhami is the author of Gluck, Gertude and Alice, Greta and Cecil, and The Trials of Radclyffe Hall. She lives in London.
"Lavishly illustrated, pungent with luxurious detail and hardheaded investigation, this is popular history to relish." --Publishers Weekly "Vivid and fast-paced, Souhami's story is wonderfully readable--a must for those caught up in the drama now playing itself out among the descendants of King Edward and his machiavellian mistress." --People "An electrifying study of Mrs. Keppel--famously King Edward VII's mistress--and of her daughter Violet Trefusis--notoriously Vita Sackville-West's lover.... This dark and Gothic tale of passion and cruelty, of an indomitable mother and a frail daughter, is the more shocking for its imperturbable, elegant settings--Biarritz, London drawing rooms, Florentine villas, and English country houses." --Daily Telegraph (London)
The story of Edward VII and his longtime mistress, Alice Keppel‘summoned to his bedside by Queen Alexandra herself as the king lay dying‘is well known; what is less familiar is that Keppel's daughter, Violet Trefusis, nourished a lifelong passion for author Vita Sackville-West. Lovers for a few tempestuous years, they eventually split‘Vita to domesticity with her husband, children, and garden (and occasional flings with other women), Violet to a flamboyant Continental existence. Readers of Nigel Nicholson's Portrait of a Marriage, the biography of his parents, Vita and diplomat Harold Nicholson, will see a different side of this tale. Biographer Souhami (Greta and Cecil, HarperSanFrancisco, 1994) creates a good historical view based on original letters and papers; she brings to present-day readers an interesting aspect of Edwardian times‘stable marriages that included lovers of both sexes. Royal-watchers of today might find it amusing to know that Alice Keppel's daughter Sonia (Violet's sister) was the grandmother of Camilla Parker-Bowles. For all readers.‘Katharine Garstka, Intergraph Corp., Huntsville, Ala.
"Lavishly illustrated, pungent with luxurious detail and hardheaded investigation, this is popular history to relish." --Publishers Weekly "Vivid and fast-paced, Souhami's story is wonderfully readable--a must for those caught up in the drama now playing itself out among the descendants of King Edward and his machiavellian mistress." --People "An electrifying study of Mrs. Keppel--famously King Edward VII's mistress--and of her daughter Violet Trefusis--notoriously Vita Sackville-West's lover.... This dark and Gothic tale of passion and cruelty, of an indomitable mother and a frail daughter, is the more shocking for its imperturbable, elegant settings--Biarritz, London drawing rooms, Florentine villas, and English country houses." --Daily Telegraph (London)
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