Mrs Jordan's Profession
The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Mrs Jordan's Profession is the acclaimed biography of Dora Jordan by bestselling author Claire Tomalin
'Intelligent, finely made and wonderfully readable. As gripping as the best fiction' Independent on Sunday
Acclaimed as the greatest comic actress of her day, Dora Jordan lived a quite different role off-stage as lover to Prince William, third son of George III. Unmarried, the pair lived in a villa on the Thames and had ten children together until William, under pressure from royal advisers, abandoned her. The story of how Dora moved between the worlds of the eighteenth-century theatre and happy domesticity, of her fights for her family and her career makes a classic story of royal perfidy and female courage.
From the acclaimed author of Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman, this celebrated biography is one of history's most astonishing untold stories.
'The strangest and most sensational story Tomalin has told so far. A miraculously detailed portrait - as brisk, unsentimental, good-humoured and fairminded as its subject' Hilary Spurling, Daily Telegraph
'Compelling, shrewd in its judgements, exceptionally well written, and informed by a vivid sense of the past' John Gross, Sunday Telegraph
'Fascinating, affecting. A compelling story and Tomalin tells it with clarity and warmth' Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Sunday Times
Claire Tomalin is the award-winning author of eight highly acclaimed biographies, including: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft; Shelley and His World; Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life; The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens; Mrs Jordan's Profession; Jane Austen: A Life; Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self; Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man and, most recently, Charles Dickens: A Life. A former literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday Times, she is married to the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Acclaimed as the greatest British comic actress of her day, spirited, tough, intelligent Dora Jordan (1761-1816) scandalized polite society when she, a former Dublin milliner's assistant, shacked up with royalty. Boisterous, uncouth navy veteran Prince William, son of King George III, fell passionately in love with Jordan and settled down with her, unmarried, in a villa on the Thames provided by the royal family. The prince (who became King William IV in 1830) had 10 children with Jordan over 20 years, but ditched her in 1812 under pressure from his advisers. Tomalin, author of The Invisible Woman, a prize-winning biography of actress Nelly Ternan, Charles Dickens's secret mistress, has written a captivating, vibrant biography of a strong, self-willed woman that explores the seductive overlapping of the theatrical world and the worlds of politics, high society and royalty. Tomalin deftly unravels Jordan's long, stormy relationship with her employer, playwright/producer/politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, her maternal devotion to her children and her tormented relations with the royal family. Illustrated.