Rodney Bolt

As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil, the impossible life of Mary Benson

Tells the extraordinary story of Mary Benson and her family, bringing the late Victorian and early Edwardian period vividly to life.

The Impossible Life of Mary Benson

As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil

Chronicles the colorful life and times of Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist for Mozart's acclaimed operas, including Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, a man who was a friend of Casanova, ex-priest, poet, notorious lover, founder of New York's first opera house, the first professor of Italian at Columbia University, and New York shop owner.

The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte--Mozart's Poet, Casanova's Friend, and Italian Opera's Impre

The Librettist of Venice

Germany

By the time he was forty, Lorenzo Da Ponte had been a poet, priest, lover and libertine, a friend of Casanova, collaborator then enemy of Salieri, and ultimately the librettist for three of Mozart's most sublime operas - The Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte and Don Giovanni. After losing all his money and the woman he loved he started afresh in New York, and by the end of his life he had founded its first opera house and become a university professor. Lorenzo Da Ponte is a fascinating and entertaining biography of a larger-than-life character, and a vibrant portrait of four cities and four changing eras of history.

The Extraordinary Adventures of the Man Behind Mozart

Lorenzo Da Ponte

The remarkable true story of the life of Mary Benson: wife of an archbishop, friend of Queen Victoria, mother of three "unpermissably gifted" children—including E. F. Benson, and in love with dozens of womenSometimes touching and sometimes hilarious, this is the story of one lovable, brilliant woman and her trajectory through the often surprising opportunities and the remarkable limitations of a Victorian woman's life. Young Minnie Sidgwick was just 12 years old when her cousin, 12-year-old Edward Benson, proposed to her in 1853. Edward went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury and little Minnie—as Mary Benson—to preside a social world that ranged from Tennyson, Henry James, and Oscar Wilde to foreign royalty and Queen Victoria herself. Yet Mrs. Benson's most intense relationships were not with her husband and his associates, but with other women. When the Archbishop died, Mary, or "Ben" to her intimates, turned down an offer from the Queen to live at Windsor, and set up home in a Jacobean manor house with her friend Lucy Tait. Drawing on the diaries and novels of the Bensons themselves, including E. F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia novels, as well as the writing of contemporary writers and poets, this book creates a very rich portrait of Mary Benson, her family, her close female friends, and their world.

The Extraordinary Story of a Victorian Wife

Britta Bolt

Een dode man in een zolderkamer, een verminkt lijk in de Prinsengracht. Pieter Posthumus, medewerker van het Team Uitvaarten van de Gemeente Amsterdam, regelt begrafenissen voor dit soort anonieme lijken. En de twee onbekende doden laten Posthumus niet los. Hij is ervan overtuigd dat hij een moordenaar op het spoor is, ook al denkt de politie er anders over. Op zoek naar de waarheid raakt Posthumus verzeild in de schimmige wereld van terrorisme en geheime diensten en brengt daarmee niet alleen zichzelf maar ook anderen in gevaar. Heldhaftig introduceert de onconventionele speurder Pieter Posthumus in de canon van de misdaadliteratuur en is het eerste deel van een sfeervolle Amsterdamse misdaadtrilogie. Heldhaftig, vastberaden en barmhartig - het motto van de stad - loopt als een rode draad door de drie boeken.

Heldhaftig

It's all in your mind The spirit of tolerance does constant battle with the ghost of Calvin for control of the Dutch psyche. Few Dutch people go to church anymore, but they don't need to. Inside every Hollander's head is a little pulpit containing a preacher with a wagging finger. Going Dutch This is the nation that once sold scrapers for getting the last remnants of the film of buttermilk from the inside of the bottle. The Dutch "think with their pockets." Parsimony is not an embarrassment, but a virtue. Culture vultures The Dutch are cultural magpies. They keep a beady eye on other people's cultural trends, and are swift to snap up sparkling new fashions. This means that rather than producing an indigenous culture, they have become voracious consumers of everybody else's?true Europeans, whose cultural fads and fancies know no borders. The Netherlands acts as a giant cultural sponge. Double Dutch For the Dutch, the other side of the question is as important as the question itself. Dialogue is the lubricant of tolerance, and the essential ingredient of dialogue is "Yes, but . . ."

Xenophobe's Guide to the Dutch

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY. She is as good as God, and as clever as the Devil.' Dame Ethel Smyth, English composer and leader of the women's suffrage movement Archbishop of Canterbury, insufferable to the end, died on his knees in church saying the CoBGession, after a life of relentless success. At that moment his wife Mary became nobody... 'All this is over,' Mary wrote in her diary, 'it has fallen to pieces around us.'' her just three years later. Through her marriage to Edward, whose career would take him from success as a young head schoolmaster to become Archbishop of Canterbury, Mary Benson came to preside over Lambeth Palace and a social circle that ranged from famous politicians and celebrated writers to Queen Victoria herself. But Mrs Benson's most intense and intimate relationships were not with her husband, but with other women.

Rodney Bolt

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