The Viceroy's Daughters : The Lives of the Curzon Sisters

Rating:
Summary: Better than Masterpiece Theater!
Review: "The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters" takes you into the homes-and the bedrooms-of some of Britain's most powerful figures in the period between the two World Wars.

The Viceroy was Lord Curzon, a smart and ambitious aristocrat who married a beautiful American heiress. When she died, at the turn of the last century, she left him with a lot of money and three attractive, willful daughters.

These three daughters-Irene, Cimmie and Baba-never did that much in their own rights (they were no Mitford sisters) but they did circulate in very interesting crowds. IN addition, their wealth gave them a tremendous sense of independence and ability to pursue their interests.

Irene, the eldest, never married. Her life was filled with men, foxes, and drink (not necessarily in that order). Cimmie, the middle, married the British fascist Oswald Mosley. She was deeply devoted to him and his causes-campaigning in her furs for fascism, for socialism, for whatever cause captured him-despite his many infidelities. She, like her mother, died young while her husband was embroiled in an affair with the beautiful Diana Mitford Guinness. Her two surviving sisters took her death as an excuse to wage out all war against Diana Mitford and her family. (Mitford did eventually marry Mosley.)
Irene basically raised Cimmie's children. And Baba, the youngest, well she took her place in Cimmie's bed with Mosley despite her own marriage to the Duke of Windsor's best friend.

Much of the charm of the book lies in seeing certain historical figues-the Duke of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, Mosley-through the eyes of these sisters. These women certainly had interesting if not overly consequential lives.

I would recommend this book to Anglophiles, to lovers of social history, and to fans of the interwar period (if you liked the movie Gosford Park, you'll love this book). If you're looking for a serious examination of the time and the history, well look elsewhere. But if you want an interesting read that will give you a "feel" for the times-then "The Viceroy's Daughters" is your book.

Rating:
Summary: E! TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY candidate
Review: Anyone who is fond of the BBC-produced period dramas that make up the typical fare on public television's "Masterpiece Theater" will find this book a delicious treat. The lives of the three Curzon sisters are played out during the period Robert Graves called "The Long Weekend," -- Great Britain between the two world wars. All the usual suspects are here -- The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Ramsey MacDonald, Sir Oswald Mosely, Nancy Astor, Fruity Metcalf, et. al. The Curzon sisters were intimates of Mosely and the Cliveden Set, yet we see them not as political actors but as party guests and hostesses of country house weekends where Neville Chamberlain cheats to beat out David Astor at musical chairs, or Oswald Mosely tries to juggle the convergence of multiple girlfriends at the same location simultaneously. And then there is the period itself -- The Curzon sisters were among those who sailed on the Normandie, danced the Charleston and the Black Bottom at the Kit Kat Club, ate at Quaglinos, weekended at Fort Belvedere and summered in Antibes. They lived the life the BBC costume dramas only faintly evoke for us today. And the life they lived had its share of pain and sorrow, unrequited love, early death, and alcohol abuse. Ms. De Courcy escorts us through these three lives elegantly and efficiently, never losing track of any one sister along the way. If you read the recently released book about the Mitford Sisters (as I did), you'll be struck by how much more effectively De Courcy's book transports you into the period and world of her subjects. Oddly, considering the notorious Mitford girls reputations, the Curzon sisters led much more interesting lives than the Mitfords, and quite frankly are much less annoying. One was elected to Parliament in 1928, when women politicians were a novelty. Another was at the center of the abdication crisis of 1936 and attended the wedding of the Duke of Windsor and Mrs. Simpson. And the third was a Baroness in her own right, an expert hunter and horsewoman, a philanthropist and an intimate of musicians like Artur Rubenstein and John MacCormack. Rather than the babytalking Mitford girls, the Curzon sisters taste, style, wit and intelligence should serve as the model of the age. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and hope to read Ms. De Courcy's other books as well. She is an excellent tour guide in time travel to a more elegant era.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre tale
Review: Curzon himself was no prize, surely one of the most vainglorious men ever to walk the earth, and his position as Viceroy of India fairly turned his head. His first wife, the American heiress Mary, died too soon and had she lived a bit longer her influence might have prevented her three daughters from going on in the profligate way they did. Or is that mere sentimentality? Whatever it is, it's the crux of Anne de Courcy's listless group biography.

The author's research, while it makes for pleasant reading, hasn't uncovered anything really new about the three unpleasant Curzon sisters. The reader ultimately feels sympathy for the UK novelist Elinor Glyn, who wrote "It," with whom Curzon dallied after Mary died and whom he betrayed as cavalierly as he served the people of India.

I suppose there are readers who like Diana Mitford and who will be interested in the other women in her husband's brutish life. They will lap this up like lackeys.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre tale
Review: Curzon himself was no prize, surely one of the most vainglorious men ever to walk the earth, and his position as Viceroy of India fairly turned his head. His first wife, the American heiress Mary, died too soon and had she lived a bit longer her influence might have prevented her three daughters from going on in the profligate way they did. Or is that mere sentimentality? Whatever it is, it's the crux of Anne de Courcy's listless group biography.

The author's research, while it makes for pleasant reading, hasn't uncovered anything really new about the three unpleasant Curzon sisters. The reader ultimately feels sympathy for the UK novelist Elinor Glyn, who wrote "It," with whom Curzon dallied after Mary died and whom he betrayed as cavalierly as he served the people of India.

I suppose there are readers who like Diana Mitford and who will be interested in the other women in her husband's brutish life. They will lap this up like lackeys.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous!
Review: I loved this book. It makes no pretenses toward being other than what it is: a biography of several shallow aristocrats who played constant games of "musical beds," left the rearing of their children to nannies, fought with one another constantly, and didn't understand why they were so miserable. Rather than wasting our time with political machinations (God knows the Curzon sisters didn't; they supported various parties based on who the menfolk supported, even when the menfolk were Oswald Mosely, and then didn't understand why their Jewish friends stopped talking to them), the author describes their clothes and the tangled personal relationships and bizarre dependencies that made up their lives. Seriously, it's fantastic.

This is the sort of book that you have to read in the right sort of company so that you can shout out updates: "Okay, now she's sleeping with her brother-in-law! Wait... now it's the other one! Oooh, now the family's telling her to do it!... Okay, now her husband's following the prince of Wales around like a puppy! Now the other one's sleeping with that pianist guy!... My God, he slept with her stepmother? What is up with these people?"

A lot of sex, a lot of scandal... Basically, it's like a really long Vogue article. If that's your cup of tea, you'll love this.

Rating:
Summary: Triple trouble
Review: This is a fascinating book for anyone interested in the history of interwar Britain. The three Curzon sisters, via their marriages, love affairs, and circle of friends managed to touch on just about every wild, scandalous, or history-making personage of the time, including the abdicating Prince of Wales and his wife, Churchill, and Hitler. The book is engrossing, but by the end of it, you're almost exhausted from the wild emotional swings, bed-hopping, and just outright meanness that the sisters and their circle exhibit. I closed the book feeling rather sorry for Irene, and feeling angry at Baba - who in the traditional manner of the gleefully wicked, outlived just about everybody. Reccomended.

Rating:
Summary: Triple trouble
Review: This is a sound biography on the Curzon sisters and a superior work to de Courcy's biography on Diana Mitford, Oswald Mosley's second wife. Mosley features frequently in this account of Lord Curzon's three daughters and his involvement with all three sisters is sure to raise eyebrows.

The book reads easily and it does provide a fascinating insight into the glamour filled days of 1930s London. Contrasting with the parties, lunches and extravagance is the political evolution of Mosley and his wife. Their shift from the Conservatives to Labour and finally to the British Union of Fascists highlights the problems faced by working class Britons during the depression.

Although not as well written or researched as Robert Skidelsky's biography on Mosley, this is a nice introduction to the world of the British aristocracy in the 1930s.

Rating:
Summary: So true....
Review: Unlike the Mitford girls, the Curzon sisters were essentially useless creatures, though one could base a really good revolution on their cosseted existence and horrid antics. Upper classes in every land produce people like them, but the English do it particularly well. I remember at lunch one day hearing a well-known older titled lady, refer to a deceased -and very grand- noblewoman, saying, "Yes, and _________ made the Curzon sisters look like nuns!" After reading "The Viceroy's Daughters" I now know that the 1920s and '30s were much more wild than I ever imagined... and I was a teenager in the 1960's!
If you enjoy the perfectly dreadful, really meaningless, but drama-filled lives of some of society's sacred monsters, Anne de Courcy's superbly written and meticulously researched book is just the thing.