Life Mask [Paperback]

The bestselling author of Slammerkin vividly brings to life the Beau Monde of late eighteenth-century England, turning the private drama of three celebrated Londoners into a robust, full-bodied portrait of a world on the brink of revolution. In a time of looming war, of glittering spectacle and financial disasters, the wealthy liberals of the Whig Party work to topple a tyrannical prime minister and a lunatic king. Marriages and friendships stretch or break; political liaisons prove as dangerous as erotic ones; and everyone wears a mask. Will Eliza Farren, England's leading comedic actress, gain entry to that elite circle that calls itself the World? Can Lord Derby, the inventor of the horse race that bears his name, endure public mockery of his long, unconsummated courtship of the actress? Will Anne Damer, a sculptor and rumored Sapphist, be the cause of Eliza's fall from grace?

This is a remakable novel in the tradition of the very best historical fiction.

PRAISE FORLIFE MASK

Mesmerizing. With the French Revolution raging in the background, Donoghue has lighted on another terrific story, and she pulls off a dazzling feat of choreography. --Julia Livshin,TheWashington Post Book World

Few will be able to put it down before its enthralling tales end. --Chicago Tribune

Primary View

The angle from which a sculpture yields
its most pleasing and comprehensive view.
Some sculptures appear fragmentary or implausible
when seen from any angle but the primary view.

SEVERAL of our Correspondents have written to enquire exactly what is meant by that familiar phrase, the World. Allow us to reply that those who must ask the nature of the Beau Monde (alias the Quality, the Bon Ton, or simply the Ton) thereby prove themselves to be excluded from it.

This select band call themselves the World, being convinced that there is no other-or none that matters. Their number l•