A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby

by Mary S. Lovell

Book Overview

The biography of Jane Digby, an 'enthralling tale of a nineteenth-century beauty whose heart - and hormones - ruled her head.' Harpers and Queen A celebrated aristocratic beauty, Jane Digby married... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1857024699
• Release Date: June 2003
• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.9" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

From the British upper class to Queen of the Desert

When the then Pamela Digby Churchill (later to be Pamela Churchill Harriman) shocked British and European society with her string of marriages and romantic alliances, she was actually following more in the footsteps of an ancestor than blazing new ground. Over a hundred years before Pamela romped her way through Europe and America, the Honorable Jane Digby, Lady Ellenborough was embarkening on a series of affairs that drove her from England and eventually to the desert where she spent her final years.Mary S. Lovell could have potrayed Jane Digby as a heartless tramp or made her a cartoon maneater that wouldn't be out of place in a Jackie Collins novel. At times, Jane Digby's life does seem larger than life and more like a daytime soap opera. Her lovers included crowned heads of states and even her own beloved cousin. Her final years were spent as the wife of a Beduoin chief, performing the traditional female duties while the tribe was traveling. Luckily, Mary S. Lovell is a carefully biographer who sorted through masses of documents to find the truth behind the rumors and legends. Along with the legacy of her scandals, Jane become a mother several times. Her children, mostly seen as more annoyance than objects of affection, where left with their fathers when Jane moved onto her next adventure. Tragically, one of her daughters succumbed to madness and two of her sons died in childhood. If you adore biographies or have come across the name Jane Digby in your reading, "Rebel Heart: The Scandalous Life of Jane Digby" is must read.

Cracking good read!

I adore biography - especially those of the great characters of the second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. I knew of Jane Digby el Mezrab from Irving Wallace's Nymphos and Other Maniacs which I read many years ago and also via several biographies of Sir Richard Burton. This is a well written, carefully and extensively researched book which benefited enormously from the author's good luck in uncovering much new, previously unseen and unpublished family material in Dorset and New Zealand. This, the author says in her acknowledgements, is more satisfying than the publication of the book itself. I agree, for this sort of discovery is palpably thrilling and the author's excitement shines through her narrative.This biography reads like fiction and Jane Digby, firstly Lady Ellenborough, was one of those larger than life people who followed their own path, irrespective of the mores of their own time. Following Jane's life is a tour through the drawing rooms of Regency England, several European and Balkan courts to the deserts of Syria and Arabia. It is the story of a woman (thrice divorced) who eventually found happiness and fulfilment with a man of great nobility from an entirely different race, culture and religion. Jane's interest in the minutiae of life in Damascus in the mid 19th century makes fascinating reading and her wit and fondness for her adopted "tribe" in the desert is moving.Highly recommended!

A life finally exposed

Jane Digby led a life of glamorous scandal - mostly played out during the reign of that most prudish of rulers, Queen Victoria. Biographies of her in the past have not been too successful as her story is obscured beneath layers of misinformation generated from the tabloid press of the time, and from well-meaning interference by such people as Richard Burton's wife.Lovell has done a stunning job in digging through all the sources and turning up a great deal of new information on Digby which finally exposes her life in all its strengths and weaknesses. It is interesting how much you can dislike a subject and still like a story and that is what happened for me with Jane Digby. I found her as a person to be rather flirtatious and passionate and not very sensible. She did so much for 'love' and was so disappointed by in it. She married four times and had an equal number of well-known lovers as well. There is a litte on her childhood but the story really begins from her first fatally flawed marriage to Lord Ellenborough. As Digby's life progressed I felt Lovell managed to capture her increasing commonsense and growth as a person. The story of Digby is so amazing - she travelled all round Europe creating scandal as she went until finally settling in Palmyra with her last husband, an Sheikh.Her life is part a travel-logue of Europe in the mid Nineteenth century part brilliantly readable scandal. A truly flawed subject, she makes great reading and Lovell has done a great job in presenting her.

Jane Digby would have been very pleased!!!

During her "Scandalous Life" (1800's), Jane Digby was often written about in the press and provided foder for the tea room gossips for over 50 years. The stories seldom had more than a grain of truth but her ability to live her own life outside of the conventional standards of her day needed no embellishments. I have read other books and accounts of her life but Mary S Lovell has now set the standard that the other biographers will be judged. Her attention to details and access to the volumes of diaries and letters brought this biography its validity. She presents Jane's life without moralizing and judging her actions. Noone could make up a story with the twists and turns found in Jane's biography. After the episode with Isabel Burton(who tried to capitalize on Jane's story and her brief acquaintance with her when she thought Jane has died), must have left Jane Digby very cynical of biographers but I believe that she would have been very happy with Mary Lovell's. What greater compliment can an author garner from their subject? I will add my lament about the "out of print" status of this biography here in the states. I was thrilled to find a copy displayed casually in the biography section of a village bookstore in Ashburton,Devon, England while I was visiting the area with friends. The cover was bent and battered but it was their last copy. They told me it would take a few days until their next order arrived. The title was changed to "A Scandalous Life", The Biography of Jane Digby published by Fourth Estate,London. I bought the battered copy and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have also added Mary S.Lovell to my list of favorite biographers!.

Should be retitled: The Extraordinary Life of Jane Digby

I have read this book and the only thing Scandalous about is is that the publisher has not reprinted it! The herstory of the Middle East has many intriguing women who have done remarkable things. These women like Jane Digby, loved the desert no less than many of the "heroes" we all can still read about today. Yet their travels are scarcely cited. Jane Digby's romantic trysts may have stunned her peers, but today her story is fascinating. Visiting Damascus, travelling to Palmyra, each had such a different impact knowing I was seeing what she saw over a hundred years ago. In a region where the dominance of males, Islam and the harsh desert life is well documented, it is a shame more interested readers cannot learn why a western woman would chose it as her home in the 19th century. The author stays away from judgements about Jane Digby, and presents her as honestly as she was-a rebel of the heart.