A review by kimmag92
The Duchess Countess: The Woman Who Scandalized Eighteenth-Century London by Catherine Ostler

Did not finish book. Stopped at 38%.

I had very high hopes for this book as Elizabeth Chudleigh lived an incredibly interesting life and I was looking forward to reading a biography of her. I have a degree in history and have worked in heritage for 10 years now so have read my fair share of biographies and histories. The author is not a historian and it really shows. This book is very much so-and-so-begot-so-and-so and on and on and on at times and at times it presents things as fact and at others is aware of possible bias in the source material. She does try to do this but because she's not a historian it doesn't quite work. Either due to a lack of sources about Elizabeth or wanting to paint a picture of mid 1700s England much of the 160 pages I read were not focused on Elizabeth. It was about court life and others around her and I just kept thinking to myself "and?". I fully believe the author finds Elizabeth Chudleigh to be an incredibly interesting woman and really admires her but her lack of training as a historian pulls away from the portrait she was trying to paint.