Milestones of Science Books

MONTEZ, Lola [GILBERT, Elizabeth Rosanna].

The Arts of Beauty or, Secrets of a Lady's Toilet. With Hints to Gentlemen on the Art of Fascinating.

New York: Dick & Fitzgerald Publishers, 1858.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002443

12mo (167 x 113 mm). i-xvii, [2], 20-132, [12] pp., including half-title and 6 leaves of adverts bound at the end. Contemporary publisher's olive cloth, blind stamped spine and boards, gilt-lettered and -decorated spine and front board, dark-brown endpapers (minor rubbing, corners bumped, some edge-chipping of front flyleaf). Text little age-toned, a few pages with pale brown spotting, a few text markings, text corrections and annotations in ink. Very good, unsophisticated copy. ----

RARE FIRST EDITION. Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld (1821-1861), better known by the stage name Lola Montez was a celebrated beauty, actress, and courtesan and her book, a factual biography and amusing guide to amorous entanglements, reads like fiction. Madame Montez was born Eliza Rosanna Gilbert in County Limerick. She spent her early years between India and the U.K. and had affairs with Franz Liszt, Alexander Dumas, and others. As a performer, she was dancing professionally at the age of sixteen and most likely engaged in sex work as well. In polite society she was described as a courtesan. Her power in this position reaches its apex in Munich, where she wielded great influence over King Ludwig I of Bavaria as his mistress. Between 1846 and 1848, her role in the court caused rather profound political upheaval, ultimately resulting in Ludwig's abdication from the throne. Marriages, affairs, and controversy came and went in subsequent years as Montez traveled to Australia and the United States, performing and dancing professionally. Montez is buried in Brooklyn, where she succumbed to syphilis in January of 1861. Aspects of her story have been portrayed in many period and modern films and novels, and she may be the inspiration for Conan Doyle's Irene Adler. At the time of her death, Lola Montez was thirty-nine years old.

Price: 1,400 €  *  convert currency