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Talk, Q&A and Book Signing at Chawton House Library

The Earl’s Machine  presents the remarkable inventions of Lady Hester Stanhope’s father, Charles, 3rd Earl Stanhope (1753-1816).

“In contrast to his aristocratic upbringing, Stanhope was an outspoken libertarian who adopted the sobriquet Citizen Stanhope after the French Revolution. Despite a reputation for eccentricity, the earl was a more-than-amateur gentleman inventor. Besides his calculating machines, he registered patents for steamships, developed fire-proof building materials and designed canals. He also invented a new form of stereotyping and built a printing press which was acquired by Oxford University Press.”

Thanks to Clarion Arts for this summary:

This fascinating exhibition is curated by Martyn Downer, currently a director of Corfield Morris, the independent consultants to collectors of Fine Art and Antiques, and author of Nelson’s Purse and The Queen’s Knight.

Lee Miller has always been an inspirational figure to me, and I was particularly taken with Picasso’s cubist portrait of her, which Penrose says he allegedly greeted with a delighted ‘Mama!’ when he first saw it as an infant, adding that he may have been crying out in fright at the splintered image rather than in recognition!

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Many who were drawn to the legend of Lady Hester Stanhope in later generations found the fact that she appeared to lead a man’s life in a woman’s body to be a potently sensual combination. As an adolescent growing up for a brief time in Corunna, Picasso had stumbled on the grave of the man who might have married her, Sir John Moore. Devouring one of the early biographies about her, he read that even as blood welled up in his mouth, the brave man had choked out her name. In Paris, Picasso told his friend, the photographer Lee Miller, that he found the idea of Hester Stanhope exciting and erotic, that she had been “the very model of the free woman.” According to Miller, “he had been enthralled about by books of her adventures and life with the Bedouin, but instead of wanting to follow her footsteps in the desert, he dreamed of meeting in England someone like her.” In fact, Picasso often remarked upon what he saw as the striking similarities in the Englishwoman’s character and charisma to that of the iconic Miller, beautifully photogenic and adventurous herself, for the journeys she had made into the Egyptian desert – and especially to remote Siwa – on photographic expeditions, just before the Second World War broke out.

I urge anyone with an interest in the life and work of Lee Miller – fashion model, Surrealist muse, photographer, war correspondent and gourmet cook – to make the trip to West Dean, near Chichester, to see Lee Miller: Coinage of the Mind, from 13 September – 2 November at the Sussex Barn Gallery, West Dean College.

If you don’t manage to catch the programme live, you should be able to listen at your leisure via the Radio 4 “Listen Again” facility after the initial broadcast.

Check the BBC Radio 4 wesbite for full details.

Barry Forshaw, Daily Express, 29 August 2008 - Read full review here

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‘What is it about ‘the east’ that seems to attract powerful Englishwomen? … Each of them, however, was following in the footsteps of Lady Hester Stanhope, first among equals, and the subject of this spirited new biography … Star Of The Morning is a fascinating and atmospheric biography of a truly remarkable woman. Kirsten Ellis has left no stone unturned in this admirable book, doing some mean travelling of her own in the process’

Katie Hickman, The Daily Mail, 23 August 2008 - Read full review here

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‘Kirsten Ellis…is keen to take her subject out of the category of “benign but barking” to which single women travellers were often confined. The ground has been well covered in earlier works, but Ellis has unearthed fresh material, and retells the story with idiosyncratic panache… Ellis is a vivid narrator with an eye for detail: the perfumed dinners attended by naked female slaves; the dusk return of the swallows to the Umayyad mosque.’

Sara Wheeler, The Daily Telegraph, 23 August 2008 - Read full review here

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‘In Ellis’s account…we have a very different Hester Stanhope: a woman who has inherited the mantle of her Prime Minister forebears (William Pitt the Younger was her uncle; Pitt the Elder her grandfather), showing due leadership, courage under fire, and a mission to count in the imperial power games being played in the East.’

The Scotsman, 23 August 2008 - Read full review here

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‘An intense and readable biography…the exploits of headstrong proto-feminists in alien cultures make for good copy and perhaps, a good film. Ellis writes clearly and objectively…and refuses to be swayed by her subject’s emotional excesses… she is excellent on historical detail, particularly the interplay between international and local politics around the Mediterranean.’

Andrew Lycett, Literary Review, August 2008 - Download full review here

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]]> http://www.kirstenellis.net/2008/08/28/recent-reviews-of-star-of-the-morning/feed/ http://www.kirstenellis.net/2008/08/18/lady-hester-stanhope-on-great-lives-bbc-radio-4/ http://www.kirstenellis.net/2008/08/18/lady-hester-stanhope-on-great-lives-bbc-radio-4/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:40:24 +0000 admin http://www.kirstenellis.net/?p=77 Listen out for Deborah Meaden, of Dragon’s Den celebrity discussing her choice of Lady Hester Stanhope as her Great Life, in discussion with Matthew Parris and ‘expert witness’, Kirsten Ellis, on Great Lives, BBC Radio 4, to be aired in September.

Check the BBC Radio 4 wesbite for details.

Or check back again here for details of the listing to be posted.

I was thrilled to be able to launch Star of the Morning, The Extraordinary Life of Lady Hester Stanhope on August 12 at Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street in London. For many years this Edwardian-era bookshop has been one of my all-time favourite places, with its long oak galleries and graceful skylights, the perfect place to duck into on a rainy London afternoon and always find something serendipitous.

It was my first time speaking in public about my book and Hester, and I had thought I would be nervous, but there was a wonderful and relaxed atmosphere with rather a large crowd and much wine quaffed, and I enjoyed telling a few stories about my research and a few tidbits about the exciting new material I had uncovered about Hester. The best compliment a writer can have when they talk about their book is when people say: I didn’t know anything about this, but I was so fascinated by what you said, I had to buy your book.

But the highlight of the evening was definitely the performance of a classical Egyptian dance inspired by raks sharki, an old Middle Eastern dance form, to ’40’s Arabic music by Shereen. (It was thus not dissimiliar to the sort of dance that Hester and her entourage would have seen when they visited Egypt in 1812). This very talented and beautiful dancer told me later that although she usually performs alongside live musicians, she enjoyed the experience of dancing surrounded by so many books, and I have been assured it was a first for Daunt Books!

I was also thrilled to have so many friends, acquaintances and people connected with the book there.

Guests came from as far away as New Zealand and Lebanon, and I was glad to have along representatives from Chevening, where Hester grew up, and from the Venezuelan Embassy, recognising the importance of my book’s revelations about Hester’s friendship with the flamboyant Venezuelan revolutionary, General Francisco de Miranda.

My special thanks go out to everyone at Daunt Books! I’m sure Hester herself would have enjoyed the setting and relished her evening in Marylebone, where indeed, she spent a great deal of her early life. I was thrilled to see the Star Of The Morning display in Daunt’s window, and could not have imagined a better launch.

Kirsten Ellis talks about her new biography which presents a stunning reappraisal of this remarkable woman’s life.

Tuesday, 28 October, 2008
6.30 start
Sessions House Lecture Theatre, County Hall
Maidstone, Kent
£3-50 (half price for Friends of the Kent Archives Service or Friends of Maidstone Museum)

Thursday, 6th November
6.30PM - 8PM

Chawton House Library
Chawton, Alton, Hampshire GU34 ISJ.
Contact: info@chawton.net

Further details: http://www.chawton.org/news/index.html#Hester

Download PDF Poster of event here.