The first biography of Doris Delevingne, influential inter-war temptress and lover of Churchill and Beaton, amongst many others The plot could have been inspired by Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Vile Bodies’, but unlike Waugh’s novel
which parodies the era of the ‘Bright Young Things’
‘The Mistress of Mayfair’ is a real-life story of scandal, greed, corruption and promiscuity at the heart of 1920s and ‘30s high society, focusing on the wily, willful socialite Doris Delevingne and her doomed relationship with the gossip columnist Valentine Browne, Viscount Castlerosse. Marrying each other in pursuit of the finer things in life, their unlikely union was tempestuous from the start. rocked by affairs (with a whole host of society figures, including Cecil Beaton and Winston Churchill, amongst others) on both sides, and degenerated into one of London’s bitterest, and most talked-about, divorce battles. This story follows the rise and fall of their relationship, exploring their decadent society lives in revelatory detail and offering new insight into the lives of some of the mid twentieth-century’s most prominent figures. AUTHOR: Lyndsy Spence is the author of The Mitford Girls’ Guide to Life (THP, 2013) and Mrs Guinness: The Rise & Fall of a Thirties Socialite (THP, 2015). She is the founder of The Mitford Society, a popular online community dedicated to the Mitford sisters. SELLING POINTS: . Hugely iconic family name (she is great aunt of supermodels Cara and Poppy) . New and original research into her relationship with Winston Churchill . Unpublished correspondence and diaries from huge range of source 16 b/w photos