French Consul's Wife. Memoirs Of Celeste De Chabrillan In Gold Rush Australia

Cover Type: Softcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Jacket Condition: None Issued
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Publisher Place: Australia
Publisher Year: 2003
Edition: Reprint

Description: 304 pages. Book is in Very good condition throughout.

Publishers Description: What a subject for a film, but not, please, Meryl Streep ... Together with Dr Patricia Clancy (Melbourne University) and Jeanne Allens (La Trobe University) elegant translation and able notes, the memoirs make for a piquant, informative, variegated and often startling read ... Miegunyah Press youve done it again. (Derek Whitelock, Weekend Australian) A former Parisian courtesan, circus performer and dancer, C leste de Chabrillan scandalised Melbourne society when she arrived in 1854 as the wife of the French Consul. These memoirs give a vivid firsthand account of the two-and-a-half years she spent in gold-rush Victoria. C lestes arrival in Melbourne was preceded by the publication of her memoirs describing her illegitimate birth, miserable adolescence and celebrity career as a courtesan, bareback rider and polka dancer. As a result she was dubbed the consuls harlot spouse and ostracised by society. Despite this, C leste did not avoid the public gaze and continued to employ her literary talents. Her memoirs are of a life spent in the village of St Kilda, the diplomatic and government house circle and the Ballarat gold fields. Her descriptions of a public hanging, Governor Hothams beer ball and her own Ball for the Victims of Crimea reveal her as a woman of great energy and wilful temperament.

ISBN: 9780522850666