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On the death of France's most glorious king, Louis XIV, in 1715, few people benefited from the shift in power more than the intriguing financial genius from Edinburgh, John Law. Already notorious for killing a man in a duel and for acquiring a huge fortune from gambling, Law had proposed to the English monarch that a bank be established to issue paper money with the credit based on the value of land. But Queen Anne was not about to take advice from a gambler and felon. So, in exile in Paris, he convinced the bankrupt court of Louis XV of the value of his idea. Law soon engineered the revival of the French economy and found himself one of the most powerful men in Europe. In August 1717, he fo...
A wedding day murder leads to a commissioned portrait painter fighting to defend his reputation in this historical mystery filled with greed and revenge from bestselling author Janet Gleeson. She opened the shagreen box. Couched in gray silk was an emerald necklace, one he had not seen for twenty years. The stones were just as he recalled them: a dozen or more, baguette cut and set in gold links, with a single ruby at the center. Flashes of verdigris, orpiment, and Prussian blue sparkled in the candlelight. The form of this necklace was as disturbing as ever. It had nearly cost him his life. It is the summer of 1765. The renowned and exquisitely dressed portrait painter Joshua Pope accepts a...
New Year's Day, 1755 The life of Nathaniel Hopson, journeyman to the illustrious cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale, is about to take a chilling turn. He has been sent to Cambridge to install a new library at the country home of Lord Montfort. Moments after the foul-tempered Montfort storms away from the afternoon dinner, a gunshot is heard. Hopson runs to the library to find him dead. His nephew and lawyer believe the conclusion is obvious: Montfort, burdened with gambling debts, must have taken his own life. The gun near Montfort's hand suggests suicide, but there are bloody footprints on the library floor. And there is a strange detail: he is clutching a small, elaborately carved box of rare...
Tells the story of how the West learned to make porcelain, focusing on Bottger, who discovered the arcanum, or secret formula; and Harold and Kandler, artists at the new Meissen Porcelain Manufacture.
Three hundred years ago, a charismatic young gambler and man-about-town with a natural gift for mathematics fled London for the Contintent. His name was John Law and he had a good reason to go, having killed a man in a duel. Living off his lucrative winnings at the gaming tables of Europe, Law became increasingly fascinated by the nature of finance and journeyed to the impoverished , famine-stricken France of Louis XIV with an extraordinary idea. At the time when wealth was stored and exchanged as gold and silver coin - and there was rarely enough to fund the extravagance of kings, let alone trade - Law realised that the overriding problem was lack of available money. He reasoned that if thi...
300 years ago, a young gambler journeyed to the impoverished, famine-stricken France of Louis XIV with an extraordinary idea. He established the first French bank to issue paper money. He also created a trading company which made its shareholders rich. This book presents a tale of fortunes won and lost, of paupers made rich and lords losing all.
BIOGRAPHY: HISTORICAL. The life of Harriet Spencer, Countess of Bessborough, was one of both respectability and high scandal. She was born into the wealth and privilege of the Spencer family - and was the great-great-great-aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales. Harriet became one of the most glamorous and influential women of the Regency age. At a time when marriage was an aristocratic woman's only career choice, Harriet made an excellent match, to Frederick, Viscount Duncannon. But the marriage proved unhappy and Harriet soon embarked on a series of illicit affairs. In Naples she met and fell in love with the handsome young aristocrat Lord Granville Leveson Gower, a man twelve years her junior.And so began the affair that became the last, untold story of enduring love in the Regency period, an open secret within just a tiny circle. A window on aristocratic life at its most intimate, and brings one of the Regency period's most colourful characters vividly to life.
'Ronnie has overcome a heart-breaking start in life to achieve great success and no one deserves it more. What a dude, what a life!' - Fiona Bruce 'Brilliant...a mercurial memoir of a meritorious life.' - Lemn Sissay For decades, Ronnie Archer-Morgan has brought to life the fascinating, often surprising backstories behind our most cherished heirlooms and household objects on the Antiques Roadshow. Now, he tells his own unlikely story. Born in the fifties to a Sierra Leonean mother battling mental health problems, Ronnie spent his childhood in and out of care. After difficult beginnings, marked by abuse, racism and brushes with both criminals and the police, he got into music, managing to get...
It is New Year's Day 1755 and Nathaniel Hopson, journeyman to the famous cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale, finds himself drawn into a chilling affair. While working at the country home of Lord Montfort, Nathaniel discovers his patron shot dead in his magnificent new library. The conclusion seems obvious: burdened with gambling debts and recently possessed of a melancholic nature, Montfort must have taken his own life, but Nathaniel is not convinced. While the gun near Montfort's hand suggests suicide, what of the blood on the windowsill and the confusion of footprints on the library floor? And there is another strange detail: the small, elaborately carved box of rare grenadillo wood clutched ...
The first biography of Lady Harriet Spencer, ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, and devoted sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Harriet Spencer was one of the most glamorous, influential, and notorious aristocrats of the Regency period. Intelligent, attractive, and eager to please, at nineteen she married an aloof, distant relative; the only trait they shared was an unhealthy love of gambling. Harriet began a series of illicit dalliances, including one with the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Then she met Lord Granville Leveson Gower, handsome and twelve years her junior. Their years-long affair resulted in the birth of two children, and concealing both pregnancies from her husband required great skill. Harriet was an eyewitness to the French Revolution; traveled through war-torn Europe during the time of Napoleon; quarreled with Byron when he pursued her daughter; and became one of the leading female political activists of her day.--From publisher description.