Review: GEORGIANA DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE by Amanda Foreman

This work of non-fiction, based on extracts of diaries and newspaper articles, is a real Jekyll and Hyde read. I haven't seen the film, which looks lavish from previews, although why they chose stick-thin Keira Knightly is a mystery because apparently Georgina had a most ample figure, but I had heard an adaptation on Woman's Hour, which was excellent, so reading the book seemed a good idea.

Reading the book, though, is a different matter and it's very much a 'dry' read. The sections about Georgiana are just about bearable but the vast descriptions of the politics of the time left me with no option but to skim read. So, no, I wouldn't recommend this book.

Georgiana, by the way, was the Princess Diana of her time, married to a husband who didn't love her and kept a mistress, literally under the same roof, and who fell in love with some-one else. So it should have been far more interesting than it was. Very glad to have finished it!