Wainwright, Robert – The Bell Bookshop

The fall of the House of Montagu

Emma — Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The House of Drogo Montagu is the family name of the Dukes and Earls of Manchester. In 1926, the eldest son of the 9th Duke married a young Australian woman, Nell Stead, later dubbed the 'dissolute duchess' for habits like eating stark naked at dinner parties. Subsequent generations of the family have included the 'dubious duke' and the 'dodgy duke', so named for behaviour including swindling and fraud. This compulsive account of excess and eccentricity shows how young men, born into a life of privilege, were left with fortunes whittled away by bad luck, war and indulgence and left without life skills. This is how one house crumbled through four generations.

Enid

Emma — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Enid Lindeman stopped traffic in Manhattan, silenced gamblers in Monte Carlo and walked her pet cheetah through Hyde Park on a diamond collar. In early twentieth-century society, where women were expected to be demure and obedient, she gallivanted through life accumulating four husbands and numerous lovers, her high-jinks fascinating British gossip columnists during the inter-war years.She drove an ambulance in World War I and hid escaped Allied airmen behind enemy lines in World War II, played bridge with Somerset Maugham and entertained Hollywood royalty in the world’s most expensive private home on the Riviera, allegedly won in a game of cards. Enid bedazzled men with her beauty, outlived four husbands – two shipping magnates, a war hero and a larger-than-life Irish Earl – spent two great fortunes and earned the nickname ‘Lady Killmore’. From Sydney to New York, London to Paris and Cairo to Kenya, Robert Wainwright’s biography restores the remarkable Enid to thrilling, vivid life.

Enid: The Scandalous High-society Life of the Formidable ‘Lady Killmore’

Emma — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As Enid Lindeman gallivanted through life she accumulated four husbands, numerous lovers, and during the inter-war years her high-jinks dominated British gossip columns. Born into the Lindeman wine dynasty, Enid’s first marriage was short-lived but left her a multi-millionaire; as a dare she reportedly slept with her second husband’s entire regiment. She met Lord Carnarvon (another of her lovers) on his famous dig of King Tutankhamen’s tomb, and was one of the first to be taken down to the discovery. When Caviar died in Paris, she met and married Marmaduke ‘Duke’ Furness, the 1st Viscount Furness, whose ex-wife, Thelma, was a lover of the Prince of Wales. Enid held court at Furness’s villa, La Fiorentina, in the south of France. A sensation wherever she went, it was said that people stood on chairs in the lobby of the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo just to catch sight of her as she passed through. A sensation wherever she went, it was said that people stood on chairs in the lobby of Monte Carlo’s finest hotels just to catch sight of her. When she buried her last husband, the Earl of Kenmore, Somerset Maugham renamed his neighbour and dear friend ‘Lady Killmore’. Robert Wainwright’s biography restores the remarkable Enid to thrilling, vivid life.