Chronicles the life of ThTrFse Humbert, the fabled "billionaire's daughter," covering her rise from peasant status to high society salon doyenne, and citing the carefully fabricated illusions she wove around herself in order to rise to power.

La Grande Therese : The Greatest Scandal of the Century

Biographies & Memoirs

Spurling, Hilary

Community & Culture

Harpercollins

A hundred years ago Thérèse Humbert was one of the most powerful women in France. Her salon was the center of Parisian life. Her wealth -- as the assumed illegitimate daughter of an American billionaire -- was fabled. She lived life on a grand scale and was the toast of Paris. But Thérèse was not what she claimed to be. Her lifestyle, her history, and, most important, her fortune -- were all an elaborate hoax. When her con was finally exposed, thousands of small investors and creditors, including the inlaws of the artist Henri Matisse, were completely ruined. Thérèse was tried and sentenced to five years' hard labor. When she was released from prison, she vanished, as did the story of her life, due to the disgrace of so many wealthy and important people.
La Grande Thérèse is the remarkable story of the spectacular rise and fall of a French peasant girl with an extraordinary imagination and irresistible powers of persuasion.

La Grande Therese: The Greatest Scandal of the Century

Profile Books Ltd.

Perennial

Shortly before his death in 1978, Paul Scott won the Booker Prize for Fiction. In this biography, the author explores Scott's family background in North London, his war years in India and the Far East, the development of his fiction and the characters on whom his most famous creations were based. The author also wrote "Ivy When Young", "Secrets of a Woman's Heart", "Handbook to Anthony Powell's Music of Time" and "Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book".

Paul Scott

Hutchinson

Invitation To The Dance

Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time is a landmark of twentieth-century writing. Hilary Spurling has written an invaluable companion to the 12-volume masterpiece, creating a magnificent database of Powell’s imagination and England’s cultural landscape.

Invitation To the Dance: A Handbook to Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Arrow

Astonishing and essential, the biography that reclaimed Henri Matisse from history's slanders and restored his place in the canon of the 20th century's greatest artists Before acclaimed biographer Hilary Spurling turned her attention to Henri Mattise, precious few facts were known about his life - and those few were distorted by inaccuracy, misunderstanding and glaring gaps. The Unknown Matisse investigates the secret life of The Wild Beast (as he was known), whose early paintings shocked and enraged his contemporaries. It tells the story of an innovative genius, born in war-torn, poverty-stricken Flanders who finally overcame hardship and disaster to fulfil Van Gogh's prophecy: 'The painter of the future will be such a colourist as has never yet been.'

Unknown Matisse Man Of The North 1869 To 1908

Arts & Literature

Penguin Uk

In this astounding book (winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year 2005) Hilary Spurling's fascinating exploration of Matisse's world uncovers the secret life of the artist, whose paintings shocked and infuriated his contemporaries while paving the way for modern art. This beautifully presented second volume tells the story of Matisse's growing artistic maturity and the relationship between his life and art from 1909 to 1954, his glory years.

Matisse The Master: A Life Of Henri Matisse Volume Two 1909 To 1954

The Girl from the Fiction Department is Hilary Spurling's absorbing biography of George Orwell's second wife. George Orwell's second wife was portrayed by her husband's biographers as a manipulative gold-digger who would stop at nothing to keep control of his legacy. But the truth about Sonia Orwell - the model for Julia in Nineteen Eighty-Four - was altogether different. Beautiful, intelligent and fiercely idealistic, she lived at the heart of London's literary and artistic scene before her marriage to Orwell changed her life for ever. Burdened with the almost impossible task of protecting Orwell's estate, Sonia's loyalty to her late husband brought her nothing but poverty and despair. 'Lucid, compassionate. Brings this complex woman, and the times she lived in, vibrantly to life' Sunday Tribune 'Absorbing and sparkling. Brilliant. I urge you to read this provocative book' Sunday Express 'A story to move you to tears' Scotsman Hilary Spurling is a prize-winning biographer whose books include Ivy: The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett, The Unknown Matisse, Matisse the Master and La Grande Therese.

Girl From The Fiction Department: A Portrait Of Sonia Orwell

Henri Matisse was one of the most important and beloved artists of the twentieth century, rivalled only by his friend - and competitor - Pablo Picasso. Hilary Spurling's The Unknown Matisse and Matisse the Master were together heralded as the definitive biography of the artist, and Matisse the Master went on to win the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 2005. In this abridged, one-volume edition, Hilary Spurling reveals the origins of Matisse's astonishing talent, provides a unique insight into his life and work, and, by documenting the difficult path he took alone, clearly places him at the front rank of those who made art modern.

Matisse The Life (abridged, one-volume edition) /anglais

Arts & Photography

Anthony Powell

History

Ivy: The Life of I. Compton Burnett

Memoirs

Columbia Univ. Pr.

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Books by Spurling, Hilary