Tim Ashley
She Made History More Interesting
Enchantress: Marthe Bibesco and Her World
By Christine Sutherland
John Murray 332pp £20 order from our bookshop
‘I will never forget his kiss’, the Princess Marthe Bibesco wrote in 1933, ‘so young, so strangely chaste, insistent, searching my lips and sealing them with his … a moment we both felt had been long in coming.’ The words smack of the bodice rippers she churned out, when times were hard, under the pseudonym Lucile Ducaux. They far outsold the impressive, cultish volumes she wrote under her own name, earning her the admiration of the Académie Française and causing Proust to acclaim her as one of the greatest stylists in French prose.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
While you're waiting for the March issue of Literary Review to pop through your letterbox, have another read of February's cover piece: Richard Davenport-Hines on the stormy letters Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick wrote to one another.
http://ow.ly/iHKh50ywe1x
What's the worth of being zen when the icecaps are melting and populism looms? The world's leading thinkers including @ronpurser will assess the 'mindfulness' craze at the world's largest philosophy and music festival, @HTLGIFestival, this May. Learn more: http://ow.ly/STu650ywARQ
'Feminists have been caricatured so often that it’s worth recalling the many obstacles placed in the path of women campaigning for equal rights.'
@polblonde on @helenlewis's new book about difficult women throughout history.
http://ow.ly/Is9c50ywe7G