Afterthoughts

xvi, 304pp. Blue cloth-covered boards; gilt titles on spine. 8vo. Sun-faded spine, rubbed corners and spine ends with cloth starting to wear; quite cocked. Large stain to top text block edge, all edges tanning. Free endpapers starting to fox and tan; volume shaken and pages ageing. Otherwise, internally neat and clean.

Frances Greville (nee Maynard), known as Daisy (1861-1938) , the Countess of Warwick, was an aristocratic socialite and philanthropist, mistress of several prominent men and, for a time, of the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII.  Exposure of a love letter to the married Sir Charles Beresford scandalised; love letters to others were supressed, although published by her daughter after her death.  In the late 1920s, facing imprisonment for debt, having mismanaged her fortune, she was released on the condition that if and when she published her memoirs, they be submitted first to a literary man.  Her memoirs – entitled Ebb and Flow – were heavily censored but even so they shocked society and her daughter described them as ‘muck’   This collection of her essays was published shortly afterwards and offers further insights into Edwardian society and culture: it includes a damning chapter on ‘The Marlborough Set’ and reflects her nickname – The Red Countess.