Blessington-D'Orsay

Published in 1933, this dual biography follows Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, and the French dandy Alfred, Count d'Orsay, through the fashionable worlds of Regency and early Victorian London and of the Continent. Sadleir traces Lady Blessington's rise from an Irish girlhood and a compromised early marriage to her years as a novelist, salon hostess, and editor at Gore House, and d'Orsay's career as amateur artist, debtor, and arbiter of dress. Their household, money troubles, and the circle of writers and politicians who used that house form the centre. The book is social history told through two linked lives, not a novel.

Quarter bound in green cloth with pink paper boards patterned in gold. Pale green-yellow endleaves. Pale grey slipcase.