The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon: The Life, Loves and Lawsuits of a Legendary Victorian [first edition]

A portrait of a true Victorian eccentric--an outrageous, flirtatious, unstoppable woman who survived a slew of misfortunes and wild adventures, most of them of her own making. Born to fanatically snobbish parents on Princess Victoria's eighteenth birthday, Georgina Weldon grew up to wreak havoc on almost everyone she met. Her father was the first to miscalculate Georgina's maverick nature. After he lost both a run for Parliament and any chance of inheritance, he took his family off to Tuscany where he could watch and wait until his daughter became old enough to marry well and so repair his own fortunes.Georgina had other ideas. Her scandalous affair with a married man and her defiant marriage to the less-than-prosperous young hussar officer Harry Weldon were just the first signs that she was no ordinary girl.Harry and Georgina managed to better their position enough to move to Tavistock House, former home of Charles Dickens. There, Georgina took in a menagerie of animals and orphans and acquired a string of lovers, male and female, including the famous French composer Charles Gounod. In a plot that could have been constructed by Dickens himself, Georgina was stung by con artists, betrayed by her parents, and narrowly escaped being committed to a mental institution.When an 1882 Act of Parliament gave her the legal right to represent herself in court, Georgina became one of the first Victorian women to sue her persecutors, and she helped to overturn England's infamous Lunacy Laws, which allowed patients to be committed without proper medical examination against their will.Like the best Victorian novels, The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon marries the adventures of an intrepid protagonist with delightfully revealing behind-the-scenes glimpses of Victorian society. A tale of sex and scandal, bravado, and bravery, Mrs. Weldon's life story is wild, wicked, and totally irresistible.