Sign-In
Cart
The French Consul's Wife
Paperback
Biographies GeneralHistorical FiguresAustralia & Oceania
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780522850666
Publisher: Melbourne University
Published: Jun 14 2024
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.15
Height: 1.20 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
The vivid memoirs of a former Parisian courtesan and circus performer who scandalised Melbourne in the 1850s.
'What a subject for a film, but not, please, Meryl Streep ... Together with Dr Patricia Clancy (Melbourne University) and Jeanne Allen's (La Trobe University) elegant translation and able notes, the memoirs make for a piquant, informative, variegated and often startling read ... Miegunyah Press you've done it again.' (Derek Whitelock, Weekend Australian)
A former Parisian courtesan, circus performer and dancer, Céleste de Chabrillan scandalised Melbourne society when she arrived in 1854 as the wife of the French Consul. These memoirs give a vivid firsthand account of the two-and-a-half years she spent in gold-rush Victoria.
Céleste's arrival in Melbourne was preceded by the publication of her memoirs describing her illegitimate birth, miserable adolescence and celebrity career as a courtesan, bareback rider and polka dancer. As a result she was dubbed the consul's 'harlot spouse' and ostracised by society.
Despite this, Céleste did not avoid the public gaze and continued to employ her literary talents. Her memoirs are of a life spent in the village of St Kilda, the diplomatic and government house circle and the Ballarat gold fields. Her descriptions of a public hanging, Governor Hotham's 'beer ball' and her own Ball for the Victims of Crimea reveal her as a woman of great energy and wilful temperament.
Also from
Allen, Jeanne
The Education Avengers: How and Why a New Class of Heroes Is Fighting America's Biggest Battle
Allen, Jeanne
Hardcover
The Ultimate Guide to Selling on Etsy: How to Turn Your Etsy Shop Side Hustle into a Business
Ihli, Noelle
Allen, Jeanne
Paperback
Young Adolescent Engagement in Learning: Supporting Students Through Structure and Community
Allen, Jeanne
McGregor, Glenda
Pendergast, Donna
Hardcover
Also in
Australia & Oceania
The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
Corson, Trevor
Paperback
Island of the Lost: An Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World
Druett, Joan
Paperback
Lost Kingdom: Hawaiia's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and Americaa's First Imperial Venture
Siler, Julia Flynn
Paperback
Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny
Dash, Mike
Paperback
Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
Philbrick, Nathaniel
Paperback
A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai'i
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
Paperback
Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers
Witton, Edward
Paperback
Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
Zuckoff, Mitchell
Paperback
The Australian Wars: The Truth about the Bloody Battles Fought to Establish a Nation
Murray, Mina
Rachel, Perkins
Gapps, Stephen
Hardcover
How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai'i
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
Paperback
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest
Hoffman, Carl
Paperback
The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change
McCalman, Iain
Paperback
Voices Beyond the Grave: Japanese Internment in the French Pacific
Ireland, Benjamin Hiramatsu
Hardcover
Terra in Our Mist: A Tūhoe Narrative of Indigenous Sovereignty and Settler-State Violence
Aikman, Pounamu Jade William Emery
Hardcover
The Forgotten Children of Maui: Filipino Myths, Tattoos, and Rituals of a Demigod
Wilcken, Lane
Paperback
'I buy this piece of ground here': An Italian market-gardener community in Adelaide, 1920s-1970s
Regan, Madeleine
Paperback
Double Sunrise: Qantas Empire Airways Indian Ocean Wartime Services 1943-1946
Goodall, Geoff
Paperback
Burke and Wills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia's Most Famous Explorers
Fitzsimons, Peter
Paperback
The Myth of the Natural Laboratory: Science, Empire, and Their Derangements on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands
Young, Adrian
Hardcover
South Pacific Air War Volume 6: Wau to Bismarck Sea, January - March 1943
Claringbould, Michael
Ingman, Peter
Paperback
The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People
Flannery, Tim
Paperback
The Shameful Isles: The true story of North-West Australia's fatal experiment with medical apartheid
Price, David
Paperback
Contaminated Country: Nuclear Colonialism and Aboriginal Resistance in Australia
Urwin, Jessica
Paperback
The Road from Coorain: A Woman's Exquisitely Clear-Sighted Memoir of Growing Up Australian
Conway, Jill Ker
Paperback
Mutiny on the Bounty: A Saga of Sex, Sedition, Mayhem and Mutiny, and Survival Against Extraordinary Odds
Fitzsimons, Peter
Paperback
The Last Tour: Paul and Eslanda Robeson's Visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1960
Curthoys, Ann
Paperback
Riots: Returned soldiers and public disorder in Australia at the end of World War I
Skyring, Fiona
Paperback
Feathered Gods and Fishhooks: The Archaeology of Ancient Hawai'i, Revised Edition
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
McCoy, Mark D.
Paperback
Pathway of the Birds: The Voyaging Achievements of Māori and Their Polynesian Ancestors
Crowe, Andrew
Paperback
The Battle of the Coral Sea Explained: Expert Analysis of the Pivotal WWII Battle Where American Strength Saved Australia
Lewis, Tom, Oam
Paperback
Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers
Witton, George
Paperback
Clanlands in New Zealand: Kiwis, Kilts, and an Adventure Down Under
McTavish, Graham
Heughan, Sam
Paperback
Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea
Matthiessen, Peter
Paperback
Aborigine Trail: Trials, Travail, and Triumph Using Psychology with Aborigine Police
Rudofossi, Dan
Moloney, Matthew
Paperback
A Holistic Reading of Chronicles with a Samoan Hermeneutic: Reading Jabez in Context
Moleli Alama, Samasoni
Hardcover
People Powered Radio: Fifty Years of Australian Community Radio Station 4zzz
Anderson, Heather
Paperback
The Southern Frontier: Australia, Antarctica and Empire in the Southern Ocean World
Howitt, Rohan
Paperback
Empires of Violence: Massacre in a Revolutionary Age
Mann, Barbara Alice
Penn, Nigel
Dwyer, Philip
Hardcover
Wild Partners: Indigenous Worlds and Industrial Giants in Papua New Guinea
Guinness, Patrick
Paperback
Miles Franklin Undercover: The Little-Known Years When She Created Her Own Brilliant Career
Davies, Kerrie
Paperback
The Penguin History of New Zealand (16pt Large Edition) (Large Print Edition)
King, Michael
Paperback
Drink and Democracy: Alcohol and the Political Imaginary in Colonial Australia
Allen, Matthew
Paperback
King Kamehameha The Great: King of the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaii History, A Biography
Makana, Kale
Paperback
Queen Liliuokalani: The Hawaiian Kingdom's Last Monarch, Hawaii History, A Biography
Makana, Kale
Paperback
The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War
Horne, Gerald
Paperback
Pacific Confluence: Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i Volume 69
Sasaki, Christen T.
Paperback
Australian Queer Screens: Diversity and Social Change in Film and TV
Richards, Stuart
Cover, Rob
Monaghan, Whitney
Paperback
Aboriginal Peoples and Birds in Australia: Historical and Cultural Relationships
Clarke, Philip
Paperback
Maori Tā Moko Tattoos: History, meanings and facial tattoo traditions of Aotearoa New Zealand
Rune, Aksel
Paperback
Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection
Gibson, Jason M.
Paperback
Misadventures in Nature's Paradise: Australia's Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island during the Dutch era
Henderson, Graeme
Viduka, Andrew
de Hoop, Robert
Paperback
Land and Money Volume 1: How Britain colonised Australasia in the long 19th century
Lepper, John
Paperback
Ready Aim Fire: Major James Francis Thomas: The Fourth Victim in the Execution of Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant
Unkles, James
Paperback