Three in Love: Menages a Trois from Ancient to Modern Times [Hardcover]

Barbara M. Foster (Author), Michael Foster (Author), Letha Hadady (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1997

In the first book on menage a trois ever written for a popular audience, Barbara and Michael Foster and Letha Hadady--themselves a partnership of 10 years' standing--reveal the truth about history's best-known trios and trace the menage's appearance in art, film, and fiction. 15 photos.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If longevity is the proof and ménages à trois is the pudding, then Three in Love is an appropriate recipe for this classically suspect concoction. Claiming that their own 16-year relationship is as valid an arrangement as marriage, the authors offer their defense with a mild dose of psychology amidst examples of famous threesomes--the more familiar (Lord Nelson and the Hamiltons, June & Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin) as well as some surprises.

From Library Journal

This study, or triography, claims to be the first written on the topic of love triangles for a general audience. After "a quest for the origins, tradition, and current standings of the menage a trois," the authors, recently profiled as a threesome in the New York Observer, examine famous and infamous groupings. From the obvious (Anais Nin and Henry and June Miller) to the far-fetched and fictitious (Lois Lane, Clark Kent, Superman), the reader is exposed to the details of the relationships among these and other trios. The sightings seem to be held up to make the point that multipartner arrangements are, if not natural, at least common enough. Cited quotes from sexual pundits Camille Paglia and Dr. Ruth won't make this a must for the library, though the sexually liberated and curious might find the gossipy anecdotes titillating. The Fosters also wrote Forbidden Journey: The Life of Alexandra David-Neel (Overlook, 1997. 2d ed.), while Hadady has authored the alternative health self-helper, [Asian Health Secrets] (LJ 9/1/96). --David Nudo, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062512951
• ISBN-13: 978-0062512956
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #156,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating provocative analysis of the energy of menages, November 30, 2003

By 

Richard Whitehouse (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three in Love: Menages a Trois from Ancient to Modern Times (Paperback)

Little did i know when I bought three in love, on a lark, that this book would revolutionize my conception of the menage a trois--a subject normally winked at. This provocative book examines the menage from a unique, scholarly perspective while being a super fun read. The numbers of powerful people involved in menages are staggering, from Joseph Goebbels to FDR to Greta Garbo to the Rolling Stones. A fascinating narrative, it deals superbly with our last taboo taking a fresh, elegant
look at the influence of menages on literature, art film and politics. Between the profound scholarship and crisp writing Three is difficult to put down. Particularly because of interspersed titillating, sections which provide a peek into the authors own menage. Three is singularly compelling, a must for inquiring readers open to expanding their intellectual horizons vis a vis the possibilities of human sexual relationships.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my all-time favorites, September 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Three in Love: Menages a Trois from Ancient to Modern Times (Paperback)

Not a book for voyeurs, but a genuine study of menages a troi in history, this has become one of my indispensable books. The most memorable part of the book involves the Bloomsbury Group, the complex dance of couplings and uncouplings (or should it be triplings and untriplings?) involving John Maynard Keynes, Virginia Woolfe, Dora Carrington, Lytton Strachy and others in the early part of the last century.

Like any good love story (or collection of love stories), this is an exploration of relationships, not a catalog of sexual exploits. Why are threesomes so popular throughout history? Are some people really better off in a triad than alone or in a duo, and why? What famous figures in art, literature and philosophy seemed to need to be in a triad to be creative? This book looks at these questions, and others.

Foster, Foster and Hadady write in a captivating, easy-going style that's more like story-telling than biography. The book is thoroughly enjoyable.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A scholarly, entertaining labor of love, April 6, 2001

By 

GWS (Charlotte, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three in Love: Menages a Trois from Ancient to Modern Times (Paperback)

I bought this book the moment it was published since the topic is of some immediate interest in my life. I was not disappointed. In fact it has become one of the most-quoted books around our dinner table because so many people whose actions and opinions have shaped our world have found their emotional comfort outside traditional monogamy. Three In Love is a delightful stroll through the history of threes, well researched and written as a labor of love by a real-life triad. It succeeds on many levels: as a rough guide to the lives of the triadic and famous, as a treatise on the incredible creative (or sometimes destructive) power of three, as a laudable effort to reclaim the term menage a trois (literally "household of three") from the tawdry usage into which it has slipped. While its style may be just a bit dry at times, the sheer volume of its subjects makes it a must-read. It's great to have this particular collection of facts to know and share. No triad's book collection is complete without it.