Preview
  • The Secret Life of the Savoy

  • And the D’Oyly Carte Family
  • By: Olivia Williams
  • Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
  • Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
  • 3.8 out of 5 stars (31 ratings)

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The Secret Life of the Savoy

By: Olivia Williams
Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
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Publisher's summary

The captivating story of the famed Savoy Hotel’s founders, told through three generations - and 100 years - of glamour and high society.

For the gondoliers-themed birthday dinner, the hotel obligingly flooded the courtyard to conjure the Grand Canal of Venice. Dinner was served on a silk-lined floating gondola, real swans were swimming in the water, and, as a final flourish, a baby elephant borrowed from the London Zoo pulled a five-foot-high birthday cake.

In three generations, the D’Oyly Carte family and London’s Savoy Hotel pioneered the idea of the luxury hotel and the modern theater, propelled Gilbert and Sullivan to lasting stardom, made Oscar Wilde a transatlantic celebrity, inspired a P. G. Wodehouse series, and popularized early jazz, electric lights, and Art Deco.

Following the history of the iconic Savoy Hotel through three generations of the D’Oyly Carte family, The Secret Life of the Savoy brings to life the extraordinary cultural legacy of the most famous hotel in the world.

©2020 by Olivia Williams (P)2021 by Headline Publishing Group Limited
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What listeners say about The Secret Life of the Savoy

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Outstanding

What a wonderful historical recording if the Secret Life of the Savoy. The narrator was perfect and added the the charm of the band ok. I highly recommend if you are a social historian or just someone who finds London to be a magical place to visit!

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Outstanding

Thank you Great book so enjoyed it So well researched .. Great great read/ listen

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    3 out of 5 stars

The first parts were the best

Really enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book, but then it sort of turned into a list of names and dates as the story and the theater headed into their endings. I've read "Ritz & Escoffier" and a book about Selfridges; this kind of completes the set.

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Very little secret life of the Savoy

Too much nonsense about the theater or opera. Inconsistently about the hotels. Quite a boring story, even if one fast forwards through the dull parts.

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2 people found this helpful