Contents Vol. 1
Contents Vol. 2
VOLUME ONE
HARRIETTE WILSON Frontispiece
GEORGE, SIXTH DUKE OF ARGYLE
*FREDERICK BYNG ("POODLE BYNG")
*LORD HERTFORD
AMY—SISTER OF HARRIETTE WILSON
N.B.—The illustrations marked with an asterisk (*) are reproduced,facsimile, from the famous Deighton portraits
[Transcribers' note: we didn't retain the illustrations of this edition - the scans weren't of sufficient quality.]
Harriette Wilson, the daughter of John and Amelia Dubochet, was bornin London on February 22, 1786. Her birth is recorded in the ParishRegister of St. George, Hanover Square, and her father's name appears inthe List of Rate Payers (1786) as residing at 2 Carrington Street,Mayfair. The house still exists, and its external structure seems tohave been unaltered since the time it was built.
In old peerage volumes Dubochet, whose daughter Sophia married thesecond Lord Berwick, is vaguely described as M. Dubochet of Switzerland,but there is good reason for assuming that he was a clockmaker. Thearticle on Harriette Wilson in the Dictionary of National Biographystates that she was born about 1789, that her father kept a small shopin Mayfair, and that she flourished between the years 1810 and 1825.There can be no question, however, that she was on terms of intimacy,about 1805, with the sixth Duke of Argyle, and that in the followingyear she became the mistress of John, afterwards Viscount, Ponsonby,a handsome man of whom George IV. was jealous on account of LadyConyngham. Ponsonby succeeded as Baron on November 5, 1806, and, as[Pg 3]related in the Memoirs, he met Harriette a few weeks before his father'sdeath.
The Memoirs were first published in 1825 by John Joseph Stockdale,who issued them in paper cover parts, and so great was the demand that abarrier had to be erected in Stockdale's shop to regulate the crowd thatcame to buy. Thirty editions are said to have been sold in one year,and the work was also pirated by T. Douglas, E. Thomas, and others. Thepresent edition is reprinted from the original paper cover parts.
The Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Worcester, Lord Alvanley,"Poodle" Byng, Beau Brummell, "King" Allen, Lord Yarmouth (Thackeray'sMarquis of Steyne), and the third Duke of Leinster, were among thenumerous men of rank and fashion who came to Harriette's house, and whatis really valuable in her book is the almost photographic fidelity withwhich she reproduces the conversations and traits of her visitors. Sheobserved the men of her "salon" as only a clever woman can, and, becauseof this, the Memoirs are lifted from worthlessness and form a mostinteresting addition to the society chronicles of the time. Sir WalterScott in his Journal, December 9, 1825, writes as follows about theMemoirs and Harriette:
"... there is some good retailing of conversations, in which BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!
Sitemize Üyelik ÜCRETSİZDİR!