Proust's Duchess
How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siecle Paris
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Narrated by:
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Suzanne Toren
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By:
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Caroline Weber
About this listen
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A brilliant look at turn-of-the-century Paris through the first in-depth study of the three women Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes. “Weber has done a remarkable job of bringing to life…a world of culture, glamour and privilege.” —The Wall Street Journal
Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style." All well but unhappily married, these women sought freedom and fulfillment by reinventing themselves, between the 1870s and 1890s, as icons. At their fabled salons, they inspired the creativity of several generations of writers, visual artists, composers, designers, and journalists. Against a rich historical backdrop, Weber takes the reader into these women's daily lives of masked balls, hunts, dinners, court visits, nights at the opera or theater. But we see as well the loneliness, rigid social rules, and loveless, arranged marriages that constricted these women's lives. Proust, as a twenty-year-old law student in 1892, would worship them from afar, and later meet them and create his celebrated composite character for The Remembrance of Things Past.
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Critic reviews
“Proust’s Duchess is rich with intimate details of the extraordinary lives behind the carefully crafted public images of its three heroines. Celebrated names are dropped like confetti over the pages…. Ms. Weber has done a remarkable job of bringing to life a world of culture, glamour and privilege swept away by World War I.”—Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal
“A captivating triple biography…Focusing on three alluring women who were objects of Proust’s fascination, Weber portrays in rich detail a French aristocracy threatened by profound social and political change…Weber offers intimate details of their love affairs, betrayals, friendships, and rivalries; their worries over money and status…She recounts vividly the plush ambience, dress, and décor of their châteaux and palaces as well as the parties and salons peopled by royalty, artists, and writers who mesmerized the young, aspiring, impressionable Proust. A palpable, engrossing portrait of three extraordinary women and their tempestuous, fragile world.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Proust’s Duchess, Caroline Weber’s beguiling group biography of three aristocratic salonnières of Parisian high society in the Belle Époque… with sumptuous details, apt and amusing illustrations… and an enormous cast of the dandies, decadents, artists, writers, musicians and financiers… has succeeded much as [Proust] did in bringing that lost time back to glorious life.”—Elaine Showalter, The New York Times
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For fans of the Netflix series The Crown and from the author of the New York Times best seller 17 Carnations comes a captivating biography of Wallis Simpson, the notorious woman for whom Edward VIII gave up the throne.
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This one is being returned
- By Rita T on 02-15-18
By: Andrew Morton
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We Two
- Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals
- By: Gillian Gill
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the most influential marriage of the 19th Century - and one of history’s most enduring love stories. Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the throne as a naïve teenager, when the British Empire was at the height of its power, and seemed doomed to find failure as a monarch and misery as a woman until she married her German cousin Albert and accepted him as her lord and master. Now renowned chronicler Gillian Gill turns this familiar story on its head, revealing a strong, feisty queen, and a brilliant, fragile prince working together to build a family.
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I found it extremely moving.
- By Cheryl on 08-07-09
By: Gillian Gill
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Heiresses
- The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies
- By: Laura Thompson
- Narrated by: Laura Thompson
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Heiresses: Surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife’s inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions.
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tough listen and tough to keep track
- By Amazon Customer on 03-29-23
By: Laura Thompson
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The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
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The Mistresses of Cliveden
- Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in an English Stately Home
- By: Natalie Livingstone
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overlooking the Thames, the Cliveden mansion is flanked by two wings and surrounded by lavish gardens. Throughout its storied history, Cliveden has been a setting for misbehavior, intrigue, and passion - from its salacious, deadly beginnings in the 17th century to the 1960s Profumo affair, the sex scandal that toppled the British government. Now, in this immersive chronicle, the manor's current mistress, Natalie Livingstone, opens the doors to this prominent house and lets the walls do the talking.
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disappointed
- By Galina M. on 11-14-16
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Romantic Outlaws
- The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley
- By: Charlotte Gordon
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.
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Tons of info, poor format choice.
- By Gotta Tellya on 02-06-17
By: Charlotte Gordon
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Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
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This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
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Melville in Love
- The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Herman Melville's epic novel, Moby-Dick, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author's rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his "wicked book". Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.
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intriguing
- By Jean on 06-18-16
By: Michael Shelden
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Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter
- A Biography of Princess Louise
- By: Lucinda Hawksley
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The secrets of Queen Victoria's sixth child, Princess Louise, may be destined to remain hidden forever. What was so dangerous about this artistic, tempestuous royal that her life has been documented more by rumor and gossip than hard facts? When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded for years from public view.
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Incredibly Frustrating
- By JayOne on 01-16-20
By: Lucinda Hawksley
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The Creation of Anne Boleyn
- A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen
- By: Susan Bordo
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: Neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life.
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Most Enjoyable Biography--Win!
- By Roswatheist on 03-29-14
By: Susan Bordo
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Louisa
- The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams
- By: Louisa Thomas
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in London to an American father and a British mother on the eve of the Revolutionary War, Louisa Catherine Johnson was raised in circumstances very different from the New England upbringing of future president John Quincy Adams, whose life had been dedicated to public service from the earliest age. And yet John Quincy fell in love with her almost despite himself. Their often tempestuous but deeply close marriage lasted half a century.
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Insightful
- By Jean on 05-18-16
By: Louisa Thomas
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Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
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The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silverthorne on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
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Emily Post
- Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners
- By: Laura Claridge
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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From the excesses of the late 19th-century Gilded Age, through the horrors of World War I, to the transformations of the Roaring 20s that gave birth to her magisterial Etiquette, Emily Post unfailingly took the measure of her era. A Baltimore blue blood with a populist heart, she helped the masses live the American dream with her hugely popular book, which has been continuously in print for over 85 years.
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Typical for Emily Post
- By Stephanie on 01-07-19
By: Laura Claridge
What listeners say about Proust's Duchess
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- John Cullom
- 09-06-23
Literature level writing in a biography
First, great performance. This is an incredible book. Weber’s writing is grabbing for the ring and has arguably grasped it. The parable of the eagle and the wren applies not just to Proust, but to Weber herself through this work.
The Search is a spectacular novel, but what is lost is how significant the real life characters are. These are former royalty and Bizet’s widow, unmentioned. Proust buried the lead, and Weber puts all of that in context that adds to the impressiveness of what he actually pulled off. Capote attempted something similar in his life and work, but didn’t manage to land it. It does baffle me that Proust communicates so little of the celebrity of his characters and milieu, focusing narrowly on the time, memory, and the pathos of humanity. He might have had a real best seller.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 08-25-22
The secret life of an epoch and of women.
Tremendous. Every word a time machine into the secret life of an epoch and of women. Astonishing.
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- Uli Baer
- 01-14-19
Enthralling, entertaining and brilliant
The back-stories to the three women who would inspire Proust to create the Countess In “In Search of Lost Time” are fascinating glimpses into 19th century France - and the first women who became famous for being famous (prefiguring today’s tabloid and social media stars). Weber’s superbly written narrative is rich in exquisite detail, grounded in astonishing research but above all filled with brilliance and compassion for women who used their opportunities to carve out lives worth remembering, behind the tulle and satin and chignons.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Ashley
- 07-16-18
great story and performance
fascinating biographies of 3 captivating women and great french pronunciation on the part of the narrator. highly recommended
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2 people found this helpful
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- Mona Chipman
- 05-13-24
Outstanding
Very very detailed account of the women of the Mondane who enthralled and inspired Proust masterpiece In Search of Lost time. This is an excellent primer for anyone interested in reading In Search. Which is why I took it on.
The author outlines all the influences in Proust’s life.
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- Renee Betancourt
- 04-13-19
Put me right to sleep!
I was so excited to download this book. It’s about three fascinating French women who were forerunners to today’s media personalities. But, with a big dose of style, elegance and culture. It should have been enthralling. Unfortunately, not.
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1 person found this helpful