Product Description

A portrait of Sarah Churchill, first Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744), this volume discusses one of the most powerful, influential and fascinating women of her times. Castigated for traits which might have been applauded in a man, Sarah was famously described by Dr Johnson as a "good hater". She was instrumental in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and became a strident advocate of Whig principles. She supervised the building of Blenheim Palace and Marlborough House, and managed some 27 other estates. Sarah was a compulsive and compelling writer, narrating the major events of her day with herself often at centre-stage. This biography brings her own passionate, intelligent voice to the fore and casts a critical eye over images of the Duchess in art, history and literature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #291977 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In her lifetime Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough was given a bad press and had the misfortune to attract the satirical attentions of most of the great writers of her time. Pope and Swift, although they both had a sneaking admiration for her, viciously attacked her personality and her politics. Posterity hasn't been much kinder. One of her 20th-century biographers went as far as to diagnose her retrospectively as clinically paranoid. The wife of the greatest general of the age and the confidante of Queen Anne (who later turned against her) Sarah has been portrayed as an interfering intriguer, a mean-spirited money-grubber and a woman who used the power her wealth gave her to manipulate the lives of all--family, friends and foes--who came into contact with her. As Ophelia Field shows, in this generous and convincing rehabilitation of her reputation, Sarah's chief handicap was her sex. In a man her intriguing might have been seen as shrewd political manoeuvring, her supposed obsession with money and her alleged miserliness as the enterprise of a gifted financier. In a woman her very talents were threatening and her relationship with Anne (which may have been a physical one) was a sexually subversive danger to good government.

Throughout her long life (she survived her husband for several decades), Sarah wrote reams of letters and self-justifying memoirs and Field has drawn skilfully on these and other contemporary sources to reveal the Duchess of Marlborough as one of the most remarkable personalities, of either sex, in English 18th-century history. --Nick Rennison

Carola Hicks, The Times Literary Supplement
'The particular strengths of Field's book lie in areas unexplored by others, in particular the discussion of contemporary writing.'

John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph
'Scholarly, highly articulate, and above all never dull'

Customer Reviews

My favourite? Maybe not...
On the face of it you just can't see how this could fail to be riveting - in fact, it almost reads like the outline of an 80s sex & shopping bonkbuster - Sarah Jennings rises from humble origins (with a mother who was possibly a madam) to Duchess and the richest woman in Europe, via a lesbian affair with the Queen of England, marriage to the most famous and sexy soldier of the day (the one who famously pleasured her with his boots on) and a life of political graft which resulted in the nation footing the bill for Blenheim Palace. And yet... Partly, any quibble is because Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, despite Ophelia Field's valiant attempts to present her as a strong minded woman trapped in an age designed for men, does just come across as superbitch: a nagging, complaining, quarrelsome, vindictive and petty woman who treated Queen Anne appallingly, criticised everyone else for corruption while having made several million herself out of official offices, a blackmailer and an appalling mother who tyrannised, and was loathed by, most of her family. And partly I did find myself longing for Field to sometimes drop the fairminded historiography in favour of just expressing a human emotion. But there. Can't have everything. Although, to judge by this biography, Sarah did try.

A good read for its genre
When I first picked up this lengthy tome and saw it was the author's first book, I nearly balked. Yet the book was half price in the Blenheim Palace giftshop, the subject matter seemed fascinating, so I bought it, expecting to be disappointed. Ophelia Field's treatment of Sarah, the bright young thing (think Lady Diana Spencer) who became one of England's most powerful and rich matriarchs (she once held the reins of the Bank of England) is thorough and perceptive. The insight of the political powerplay between Sarah, Queen Anne and Sarah's rival is interesting. The only flaw is that John Churchill is seen to be somewhat of a weak character compared to Sarah, seemingly hopelessly submissive to her, which I'm not sure was the case.

The Favourite
The Favourite is a facinating story, compellingly told. Ms Field charts perfectly the parabola of Sarah's career, her extraordinary rise and her bond cushioned fall are set out in exquisite detail. The book vividly brings to life the nuanced, complex central figures at the heart of Queen Anne's court.