Mistress of Charlecote: The Memoirs of Mary Elizabeth Lucy

By Mary Elizabeth Lucy and Alice Fairfax-Lucy

Book Overview

Mary Elizabeth Williams, an heiress from North Wales, was only twenty when in 1823 she reluctantly married George Lucy and became mistress of Charlecote Old Hall in Warwickshire. Sixty years later she wrote this engaging account of her life for her grandchildren. It was a life of great happiness, for she grew to love her husband deeply. Her country home, her children, the London season and a tour abroad all brought joy and fulfilment. But her contentment was marred by tragedy as few of her many children survived her. Her words reveal a character of great strength and determination. High-spirited, discerning and delightfully free from prudishness, Mary Elizabeth Lucy draws pen-portraits of the people she met - Queen Victoria and Sir Walter Scott among them - and provides an authentic view of life in fashionable 19th-century society.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0575036931
• ISBN13: 9780575036932
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: David & Charles
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 0.6" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

Go Back in TIme with MEL

I loved this book! Having just toured the Charlecote Estate in England naturally added to my enjoyment but I feel anyone who loves history would find it facinating. I loved it so much I sent four copies to friends. Mary Elizabeth Lucy's memoirs were discovered in a desk many years after her death and read like a novel. She described in detail her life of high society at the time, hobnobbing with kings and queens. Parties and entertaining were the center of life at the estate. But, there was much sadness, too, as they lost many in the family to sickness and you wonder how she endured it all. Traveling was done in coaches or they walked and even having servants constantly in attendance wasn't enough to make it seem an easy life! This book is a fast read and sometimes you wonder if you can take one more death but MEL's spirit is so strong and she has such humor about many tales she tells, it is all worth the trip back in time. There are photos of the people she writes about which brings the story to life for the reader.