A Woman of No Importance

A Woman of No Importance
Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2014-07-11
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1408145197

Staged in 1893, when Wilde had already achieved fame, wealth and notoriety, A Woman of No Importance was another attempt to fuse comedy of manners with high melodrama. Gerald Arbuthnot is a young man on the make, with an American heiress and the post of secretary to the brilliant but dissolute Lord Illingworth within his reach. When he asks his mother to celebrate with them, it turns out that Illingworth is Gerald's father, who seduced and abandoned his mother twenty years earlier. Loyalty weighs heavier than ambition, and Gerald declines the association with Illingworth. This edition, which also analyses Wilde's various drafts and revisions of the play, argues that the playwright here continued to explore the rivalry between an older man and woman for the affection of a beautiful young man.

My Lady's Pleasure

My Lady's Pleasure
Author: Olivia Quincy
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2010-07-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101456116

A fabulous debut novel of sensual suspense and one woman's erotic liberation in Victorian England. Lady Georgiana Vernon, daughter of the Earl of Eastley, and Jeremy Staunton, youngest son of a viscount, have an unconventional relationship-at least for the upper crust in 1895. They meet publicly as friends, and privately as lovers. It's an arrangement that allows Georgiana the sexual freedom she desires-and continues to indulge in-as a guest at Penfield, where the most sought-after names in the country gather for Lord Laughlin's annual masquerade ball. Then Georgiana initiates a torrid affair with the sexy landscape architect working at Penfield. She sees it as nothing more than a harmless but pleasurable indulgence. But when the relationship is discovered she becomes the target of increasingly malicious threats. During the night of the masquerade ball, these intimidations will come to a dangerous head, as the men in Georgiana's life reveal their own secret desires.

The Plays of Oscar Wilde

The Plays of Oscar Wilde
Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2000
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9781840224184

Oscar Wilde took London by storm with his first comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan. His other plays include: A Woman of No Importance and The Importance of Being Earnest. This work features Wilde's plays ranging from his early tragedy era to the controversial Salome and little known fragments, La Sainte Courtisane and A Florentine Tragedy.

Lord Braybrook's Penniless Bride

Lord Braybrook's Penniless Bride
Author: Elizabeth Rolls
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2009-06-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1426834608

Miss Christiana Daventry will do whatever it takes to keep from being thrown out on the streets—even accept the insufferably attractive Lord Braybrook's proposition! Julian Trentham, Viscount Braybrook, urgently needs to hire a governess and companion, and Christy is conveniently available. Headstrong, with charmingly mismatched eyes and soft tawny hair, Christy is unlike any woman he has ever encountered. But there is something so deliciously endearing about her that Julian quickly forgets how scandalous it would be to give in to the mounting attraction for his penniless governess….

The Right Sort of Man

The Right Sort of Man
Author: Allison Montclair
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250178371

From debut author Allison Montclair comes an engrossing historical mystery novel set in post-war London, The Right Sort of Man. In a London slowly recovering from World War II, two very different women join forces to launch a business venture in the heart of Mayfair—The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. Miss Iris Sparks, quick-witted and impulsive, and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, practical and widowed with a young son, are determined to achieve some independence and do some good in a rapidly changing world. But their promising start is threatened when their newest client is found murdered and the man arrested for the crime is the prospective husband they matched her with. While the police are convinced they have their man, Miss Sparks and Mrs. Bainbridge are not. To clear his name—and to rescue their fledgling operation’s reputation—Sparks and Bainbridge decide to investigate on their own. Little do they know that this will put their very lives at risk. *BONUS CONTENT: This edition of The Right Sort of Man includes a new introduction from the author and a discussion guide

The Widow's Christmas Surprise

The Widow's Christmas Surprise
Author: Jenna Jaxon
Publisher: Zebra Books
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2020-09-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 142014975X

The death of her husband has thrown Lady Maria Kersey’s future into doubt—and her heart into the arms of a man she cannot have. But Christmas with the Widows’ Club will bring choices—and surprises--that may change all her holidays to come . . . Maria just gave birth to her first child, a beautiful daughter—but the event is shrouded in sorrow. A month earlier, Maria’s husband, Lord Kersey, was killed in a duel under compromising circumstances. Worse, Maria’s failure to provide a male heir has stripped her of any hope of an inheritance. Scorned by the ton, one of her few allies is her late husband’s steward, Hugh Granger. Hugh is everything her husband was not—warm, charming—and penniless. . . . Hugh has fallen desperately in love with Maria, but has little to offer but comfort. As their attraction becomes impossible to resist, Maria flees to London to spend Christmas with her dearest friends, a group of widows who lost their own husbands in the Battle of Waterloo. Little does she know the holidays will reveal a twist of fate she never expected—proving that the greatest Christmas gift is the magic of true love . . . Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com