Book description
Irene (born 1896), Cynthia (b. 1898) and Alexandria (b. 1904) were the
three daughters of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India 1898-1905 and probably
the grandest and most self-confident imperial servant Britain ever possessed.
After the death of his fabulously rich American wife in 1906, Curzon's
determination to control every aspect of his daughters' lives, including
the money that was rightfully theirs, led them one by one into revolt
against their father. The three sisters were at the very heart of the
fast and glittering world of the Twenties and Thirties.
Irene, intensely musical and a passionate foxhunter, had love affairs
in the glamorous Melton Mowbray hunting set. Cynthia ('Cimmie') married
Oswald Mosley, joining him first in the Labour Party, where she became a
popular MP herself, before following him into fascism. Alexandra
('Baba'), the youngest and most beautiful, married the Prince of Wales's
best friend Fruity Metcalfe. On Cimmie's early death in 1933 Baba flung
herself into a long and passionate affair with Mosley and a liaison with
Mussolini's ambassador to London, Count Dino Grandi, while enjoying the
romantic devotion of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. The sisters
see British fascism from behind the scenes, and the arrival of Wallis
Simpson and the early married life of the Windsors. The war finds them
based at 'the Dorch' (the Dorchester Hotel) doing good works. At the end
of their extraordinary lives, Irene and Baba have become, rather
improbably, pillars of the establishment, Irene being made one of the
very first Life Peers in 1958 for her work with youth clubs. Anne de
Courcy is a well-known writer and journalist. In the 1970s she was
Woman's Editor on the London Evening News and in the 1980s she was a
regular feature-writer for the Evening Standard. She is also a former
feature writer and reviewer for the Daily Mail. Her recent books include
THE VICEROY'S DAUGHTERS, DEBS AT WAR and THE FISHING FLEET.
