Anne de Courcy
Agent: Isobel Dixon
Assistant: Finlay Charlesworth
Biography: A well-known British writer with a long career in journalism, most recently with the Daily Mail, for which she contributes interviews, historical features and book reviews. Her books include include 1939: THE LAST SEASON, SOCIETY'S QUEEN: THE LIFE OF EDITH, MARCHIONESS OF LONDONDERRY; THE VICEROY'S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY, DEBS AT WAR, THE FISHING FLEET, MARGOT AT WAR, THE HUSBAND HUNTERS and CHANEL’S RIVIERA. Her latest book is FIVE LOVE AFFAIRS AND A FRIENDSHIP, a biography of Nancy Cunard.
‘Anne de Courcy combines the perseverance of a social historian with the panache of a novelist’ — The Times
‘A marvellous knack for choosing the less-trodden path to provide priceless sidelong looks into fascinating corners of history’ — Washington Times
FIVE LOVE AFFAIRS AND A FRIENDSHIP
Biography, 336 pages
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, April 2022
Dazzlingly beautiful, highly intelligent and an extraordinary force of energy, Nancy Cunard was an icon of the Jazz Age, said to have inspired half the poets and novelists of the twenties. Born into a life of wealth and privilege, yet one in which she barely saw her parents, Nancy rebelled against expectations and pursued a life in the arts. She sought the constant company of artists, writers, poets and painters, first in London's Soho and Mayfair, and then in the glamorous cafes of 1920s Paris.
This is the remarkable story of Nancy's Paris life, filled with art, sex and alcohol. She became a muse to Wyndham Lewis, Constantin Brâncusi sculpted her, Man Ray photographed her and she played tennis with Ernest Hemingway. She had many love affairs, the most significant of which are included in this book: the American poet Ezra Pound, the novelists Aldous Huxley and Michael Arlen, the French poet Louis Aragon and finally and controversially the black American pianist Henry Crowder, with whom she ran her printing press in Paris. She was also shaped by her lifelong friendship with George Moore, her mother's lover.
This tempestuous tale of passion and intrigue is as much a portrait of twenties Paris as it is the story of an extraordinary woman who defined her age.
CHANEL’S RIVIERA
Biography, 304 pages
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, June 2019
Far from worrying about the onset of war, in the spring of 1938 the burning question on the French Riviera was whether one should curtsey to the Duchess of Windsor. Few of those who had settled there thought much about what was going on in the rest of Europe. It was a golden, glamorous life, far removed from politics or conflict.
Featuring a sparkling cast of artists, writers and historical figures including Winston Churchill, Daisy Fellowes, Salvador Dalí, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Eileen Gray and Edith Wharton, with the enigmatic Coco Chanel at its heart, CHANEL'S RIVIERA is a captivating account of a period that saw some of the deepest extremes of luxury and terror in the whole of the twentieth century.
From Chanel's first summer at her Roquebrune villa La Pausa (in the later years with her German lover) amid the glamour of the pre-war parties and casinos in Antibes, Nice and Cannes to the horrors of evacuation and the displacement of thousands of families during the Second World War, CHANEL'S RIVIERA explores the fascinating world of the Cote d'Azur elite in the 1930s and 1940s. Enriched with much original research, it is social history that brings the lives
THE HUSBAND HUNTERS
Biography, 320 pages
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, June 2017
Towards the end of the nineteenth century and for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took place in Britain. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known 'Dollar Princess', married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour and sophistication of the Gilded Age. Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women and their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive first-hand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs and letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England - and what England thought of them.
THE FISHING FLEET: HUSBAND-HUNTING IN THE RAJ
Historical, 336 pages
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, July 2012
7 weeks in the top UK bestseller lists. Unpublished memoirs, letters and diaries rescued from attics help this sparkling narrative bring a forgotten era vividly to life.