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The Scandal of the Century

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The Scandal of the Century

By: Lisa Hilton
Narrated by: Emma Gregory
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

This is The Scandal of the Century, the true story of the author Aphra Behn, who used a shocking love affair to create the first English novel . . .

London, 1682.

When Lady Henrietta Berkeley elopes with her sister’s husband, her subsequent capture and the lawsuit that follows tears through Restoration England as the scandal of the century.

But it also proves inspiration to one Aphra Behn – already condemned as a scarlet woman of loose morals – who pens a searing and outrageous bestseller based on Henrietta’s shocking affair.

The story of how and why Henrietta acted as she did, and how and why Behn came to write it becomes, in Lisa Hilton’s hands, a stunning portrait of two women attempting to smash the shackles enslaving their sex.

'Gloriously mind-boggling . . .This is a lively book, full of saucy millennial-type analogies' Spectator


©2024 Lisa Hilton (P)2024 Penguin Audio

 Art & Literature Authors Europe Great Britain Historical Women Funny Espionage England
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A period of history that I knew little about but told as if it were from the script for Dallas or even White Lotus. The perception of the author to go behind the letters and other sources make this an account that has prompted me to try reading an Aphra Behn novel and to learn more about English history from Cromwell to the Restoration.Thank you

Complicated History made comprehensible

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