The Grit in the Pearl: The Scandalous Life of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll (The shocking true story behind A Very British Scandal, starring Claire Foy and Paul Bettany)

An updated paperback edition of Lyndsy Spence’s bestselling biography of a socialite whose scandalous divorce shocked the country. Margaret, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993) was an international celebrity in her youth, adored and observed by millions. But in 1963, the year of the Profumo Affair, the 11th Duke of Argyll shocked the country when he alleged that his adulterous wife had slept with over eighty men behind his back. He produced, as his evidence, a set of sexually explicit Polaroid photographs and explosive love letters. The duke won a divorce, but this had a dramatic effect on Margaret’s life. On the verge of financial destitution, she fell from grace and was abandoned by most of her friends prior to her death in a nursing home in Pimlico in 1993. Lyndsy Spence tells a tragic story of the life and downfall of this fascinatingly complex woman, and shows how she fell victim to a cruel husband, harsh social mores and an unforgiving class.The Grit in the Pearl is a meticulously researched and powerful biography, which acts as a potent lens on various themes in the last century: fame, privacy, the media, sex, power, and relationships between classes. AUTHOR: Lyndsy Spence is a celebrated historian who specialises in daring aristocratic women. She is a book reviewer for The Lady and the founder of The Mitford Society, an online community dedicated to researching the Mitford sisters. Her previous books for The History Press include The Mistress of Mayfair: Men, Money and the Marriage of Doris Delevingne (2018) and Mrs Guinness: The Rise and Fall of Diana Mitford, the Thirties Socialite (2017).
20 b/w illustrations