Soon to be a major motion picture starring Haley Bennett, Tom Sturridge, and Sam Riley!
Narrative history that fizzes with life and feeling. -- Benjamin Wallace, New York Times bestselling author of The Billionaire's Vinegar
The New York Times bestselling biography of the visionary young woman who built a champagne empire, became a legend, and showed the world how to live with style
Veuve Clicquot champagne epitomizes glamour, style, and luxury. In The Widow Clicquot, Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life--for the first time--the fascinating woman behind the iconic yellow label: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, who, after her husband's death, defied convention by assuming the reins of the fledgling wine business they had nurtured together. Steering the company through dizzying political and financial reversals, she became one of the world's first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time.
As much a fascinating journey through the process of making this temperamental wine as a biography of a uniquely tempered woman, The Widow Clicquot is the captivating true story of a legend and a visionary.
The story of the visionary young widow who built a champagne empire, showed the world how to live with style, and emerged a legend
Veuve Clicquot champagne epitomizes glamour, style, and luxury. But who was this young widow--the Veuve Clicquot--whose champagne sparkled at the courts of France, Britain, and Russia, and how did she rise to celebrity and fortune?
In The Widow Clicquot, Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life--for the first time--the fascinating woman behind the iconic yellow label: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin. A young witness to the dramatic events of the French Revolution and a new widow during the chaotic years of the Napoleonic Wars, Barbe-Nicole defied convention by assuming--after her husband's death--the reins of the fledgling wine business they had nurtured. Steering the company through dizzying political and financial reversals, she became one of the world's first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time.
Although the Widow Clicquot is still a legend in her native France, her story has never been told in all its richness--until now. Painstakingly researched and elegantly written, The Widow Clicquot provides a glimpse into the life of a woman who arranged clandestine and perilous champagne deliveries to Russia one day and entertained Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte on another. She was a daring and determined entrepreneur, a bold risk taker, and an audacious and intelligent woman who took control of her own destiny when fate left her on the brink of financial ruin. Her legacy lives on today, not simply through the famous product that still bears her name, but now through Mazzeo's finely crafted book. As much a fascinating journey through the process of making this temperamental wine as a biography of a uniquely tempered woman, The Widow Clicquot is utterly intoxicating.
Who knew that such a tiny bottle housed so many secrets? -- Michael Tonello, author of Bringing Home the Birkin
Here is the life of one of the 20th century's most interesting and deeply complicated women, a fascinating cultural history, and the story of an extraordinary perfume. -- Chandler Burr, New York Times scent critic and author of The Perfect Scent
Tilar J. Mazzeo, author of the New York Times bestseller The Widow Clicquot (an Amazon Best of the Month book in October 2008) returns with a captivating history of the world's most famous, seductive, and popular perfume: Chanel No. 5. Mazzeo's sweeping story of the iconic scent (known as le monstre in the fragrance industry) stretches from Coco Chanel's early success to the rise of the seminal fragrance during the 1950s to the confirmation of its bestseller status in today's crowded perfume market.
Set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of World War II, The H tel on Place Vend me is the captivating history of Paris's world-famous H tel Ritz--a breathtaking tale of glamour, opulence, and celebrity; dangerous liaisons, espionage, and resistance--from Tilar J. Manzeo, the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot and The Secret of Chanel No. 5
When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, the legendary H tel Ritz on the Place Vend me--an icon of Paris frequented by film stars and celebrity writers, American heiresses and risqu flappers, playboys, and princes--was the only luxury hotel of its kind allowed in the occupied city by order of Adolf Hitler.
Tilar J. Mazzeo traces the history of this cultural landmark from its opening in fin de si cle Paris. At its center, The Hotel on Place Vend me is an extraordinary chronicle of life at the Ritz during wartime, when the H tel was simultaneously headquarters to the highest-ranking German officers, such as Reichsmarshal Hermann G ring, and home to exclusive patrons, including Coco Chanel. Mazzeo takes us into the grand palace's suites, bars, dining rooms, and wine cellars, revealing a hotbed of illicit affairs and deadly intrigue, as well as stunning acts of defiance and treachery.
Rich in detail, illustrated with black-and-white photos, The Hotel on Place Vend me is a remarkable look at this extraordinary crucible where the future of post-war France--and all of post-war Europe--was transformed.
In a series of articles published in Tait's Magazine in 1834, Thomas DeQuincey catalogued four potential instances of plagiarism in the work of his friend and literary competitor Samuel Taylor Coleridge. DeQuincey's charges and the controversy they ignited have shaped readers' responses to the work of such writers as Coleridge, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, and John Clare ever since. But what did plagiarism mean some two hundred years ago in Britain? What was at stake when early nineteenth-century authors levied such charges against each other? How would matters change if we were to evaluate these writers by the standards of their own national moment? And what does our moral investment in plagiarism tell us about ourselves and about our relationship to the Romantic myth of authorship?
In Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period, Tilar Mazzeo historicizes the discussion of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century plagiarism and demonstrates that it had little in common with our current understanding of the term. The book offers a major reassessment of the role of borrowing, textual appropriation, and narrative mastery in British Romantic literature and provides a new picture of the period and its central aesthetic contests. Above all, Mazzeo challenges the almost exclusive modern association of Romanticism with originality and takes a fresh look at some of the most familiar writings of the period and the controversies surrounding them.