Grandes Horizontales: The Lives and Legends of Marie Duplessis, Cora Pearl, LA Paiva and LA Presidente [Anglais] [Relié]

Nineteenth-century Paris was famous for its highly formalized system of prostitution. The élite of this demimonde were courtesans who entertained aristocrats, artists, and writers such as Dumas and Baudelaire. Rounding focusses on four such cocottes—Apollonie Sabatier, Marie Duplessis, the Englishwoman Cora Pearl, and a Russian Jew known as La Païva—paying particular attention to the legends that surrounded them. Cora Pearl was said to have had herself served up on a silver platter, decorated only with parsley; after La Païva's death, her besotted husband, a Prussian count, reportedly had her embalmed in a glass jar in his castle. Rounding presents a seductive vision of women whose talent for social, financial, and sexual machination allowed them to navigate Second Empire Paris, and whose acts of self-creation and the works of art they inspired have endured longer than the details of their lives.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

"Highly readable...The book recaptures the glory of Second Empire Paris at its hheight." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

In nineteenth-century Paris, the pampered demimonde became almost indistinguishable from the haut monde, with mythical reputations growing up around its most alluring and favored celebrities. Grandes Horizantales examines the lives of four of the era's best-known courtesans-Marie Duplessis, La Présidente, La Païva, and Cora Pearl-and the men who were their lovers, providing a provocative look into the parlors and boudoirs of the women whose lives became legends.
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Virginia Rounding is a translator and writer living in London.