The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters [Hardcover]

Anne de Courcy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2002

The Viceroy's Daughters is the riveting chronicle of the dazzling lives of three remarkable sisters -- aristocratic, rich, spirited and willful-born when the wealth and privilege of the British upper classes were at their zenith.

Irene (born 1896), Cynthia (born 1898) and Alexandra (born 1904) were the three daughters of Lord Curzon, viceroy of India from 1898 to 1905 and probably the grandest and most self-confident imperial servant Britain ever possessed. After the death of his fabulously rich American wife in 1906, Curzon embarked on a long love affair with the novelist Elinor Glyn, before dropping her to marry his rich and beautiful second wife. It was his fierce determination to control every aspect of his daughters' lives -- including the money that was rightfully theirs -- that led them one by one to revolt against their father.

The three Curzon sisters were at the very heart of the fast and glittering world of the twenties and thirties. Irene, intensely musical and a passionate fox hunter, had love affairs with the glamorous Melton Mowbray hunting set. Cynthia (Cimmie) married Sir Oswald Mosley, joining him first in the Labour Party, where she became a popular and successful Labour MP herself, then following him into fascism. Alexandra (Baba), the youngest and most beautiful, married the Prince of Wales's best friend -- and best man -- Fruity Metcalfe. On Cimmie's early death in 1933, Baba flung herself into a long and passionate affair with Mosley and a liaison with Mussolini's ambassador to London, Count Grandi, while simultaneously enjoying the romantic devotion of the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax.

The sisters saw British fascism from behind the scenes and had an equally intimate view of the arrival of Wallis Simpson and the marriage and life of the Windsors. The war found them based at "the Dorch" (the Dorchester Hotel), their days spent nursing wounded soldiers, working in canteens, lecturing and doing other war work. Toward the end of their extraordinary lives, the two surviving sisters became pillars of the establishment, Irene made one of the first four life peers in 1958 for her work with youth clubs, while Baba was recognized for her tireless efforts for the Save the Children Fund with a CBE.

Based on unpublished letters and diaries, The Viceroy's Daughters throws new light on Oswald Mosley, Nancy Astor and the Cliveden set, Lord Halifax, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. It is also a wonderfully revealing portrait of British upper-class life in the first half of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Don't confuse the Curzon sisters with the Mitfords, whose biography comes out this month (see The Sisters, Forecasts, Nov. 12, 2001), although the fascist Oswald Mosley married one of each. Lord Curzon, viceroy of India, an avowed antifeminist who valued women if they were ornamental, produced three highly decorative daughters: Irene, Cynthia (Cimmie) and Alexandra (Baba). They were to lead largely inconsequential lives, but their wealth and social position put them close to the center of British political power from 1920 until the end of WWII. The eldest, Irene, never married, devoting herself first to the pursuit of foxes and married men, and later to charity work and the bottle. Cimmie had the misfortune to wed Oswald Mosley, a notorious womanizer and founder of the British Union of Fascists. Mosley bedded a string of women, including wife Cimmie's two sisters and her stepmother, until his wartime imprisonment (by then, he'd divorced Cimmie to marry Diana Guinness, n‚e Mitford). The youngest daughter, Baba, who was married to Fruity Metcalfe, an amiable if rather dim friend of the Duke of Windsor, had a talent for adultery with rich and powerful men that she exercised in the stately homes of England, while her husband occupied himself supporting the duke in his immensely comfortable exile in France. Though this well-researched book teems with political figures (e.g., Chamberlain, Mountbatten, Halifax) during a perilous historical period, we see them not as they decide the fate of nations, but with their trousers down. Their antics make the present crop of royals and members of Parliament look positively staid. 32 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

British journalist de Courcy has written numerous biographies of the British elite as well as one book on etiquette. This time, she focuses on the daughters of the colorful, controversial viceroy of India, Lord Curzon (whose second daughter married fascist Oswald Mosely). All the Curzon sisters entertained and bedded the A-list of the British elite of the last century, and the author uses the sisters as the fulcrum of a story that includes the Windsors, Mitfords, Guinnesses, Astors, and the Dorchester and Clivedon sets, plus many more of that vanishing upper stratum that ruled Britain and influenced the entire 20th century. De Courcy had access to unpublished diaries and correspondence of these toffs, and her acknowledgments are profuse and star-studded. Celebrity lovers will adore this book, which covers all aspects of the lives of this elite group its wealth, manners (both ill bred and upper crust), lusts, and political intrigues. Sadly, the last chapters disappoint; de Courcy simply condenses too many of the last decades of the Curzon sisters' lives into one lump, leaving readers wanting more. Still, this entertaining romp is recommended for all public and academic libraries. Gail Benjafield, St. Catharine's P.L., Ont.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (April 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066210615
• ISBN-13: 978-0066210612
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #945,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than Masterpiece Theater!, February 8, 2004

By 

crazyforgems (Wellesley, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters (Paperback)

"The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters" takes you into the homes-and the bedrooms-of some of Britain's most powerful figures in the period between the two World Wars.

The Viceroy was Lord Curzon, a smart and ambitious aristocrat who married a beautiful American heiress. When she died, at the turn of the last century, she left him with a lot of money and three attractive, willful daughters.

These three daughters-Irene, Cimmie and Baba-never did that much in their own rights (they were no Mitford sisters) but they did circulate in very interesting crowds. IN addition, their wealth gave them a tremendous sense of independence and ability to pursue their interests.

Irene, the eldest, never married. Her life was filled with men, foxes, and drink (not necessarily in that order). Cimmie, the middle, married the British fascist Oswald Mosley. She was deeply devoted to him and his causes-campaigning in her furs for fascism, for socialism, for whatever cause captured him-despite his many infidelities. She, like her mother, died young while her husband was embroiled in an affair with the beautiful Diana Mitford Guinness. Her two surviving sisters took her death as an excuse to wage out all war against Diana Mitford and her family. (Mitford did eventually marry Mosley.)
Irene basically raised Cimmie's children. And Baba, the youngest, well she took her place in Cimmie's bed with Mosley despite her own marriage to the Duke of Windsor's best friend.

Much of the charm of the book lies in seeing certain historical figues-the Duke of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, Mosley-through the eyes of these sisters. These women certainly had interesting if not overly consequential lives.

I would recommend this book to Anglophiles, to lovers of social history, and to fans of the interwar period (if you liked the movie Gosford Park, you'll love this book). If you're looking for a serious examination of the time and the history, well look elsewhere. But if you want an interesting read that will give you a "feel" for the times-then "The Viceroy's Daughters" is your book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gossipy, fascinating, but a little wearying by end, August 11, 2003

By 

Genevieve M. Ellerbee (Alexandria, Virginia, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters (Paperback)

This is a fascinating book for anyone interested in the history of interwar Britain. The three Curzon sisters, via their marriages, love affairs, and circle of friends managed to touch on just about every wild, scandalous, or history-making personage of the time, including the abdicating Prince of Wales and his wife, Churchill, and Hitler. The book is engrossing, but by the end of it, you're almost exhausted from the wild emotional swings, bed-hopping, and just outright meanness that the sisters and their circle exhibit. I closed the book feeling rather sorry for Irene, and feeling angry at Baba - who in the traditional manner of the gleefully wicked, outlived just about everybody. Reccomended.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So true...., August 12, 2004

By 

Chris (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters (Paperback)

Unlike the Mitford girls, the Curzon sisters were essentially useless creatures, though one could base a really good revolution on their cosseted existence and horrid antics. Upper classes in every land produce people like them, but the English do it particularly well. I remember at lunch one day hearing a well-known older titled lady, refer to a deceased -and very grand- noblewoman, saying, "Yes, and _________ made the Curzon sisters look like nuns!" After reading "The Viceroy's Daughters" I now know that the 1920s and '30s were much more wild than I ever imagined... and I was a teenager in the 1960's!
If you enjoy the perfectly dreadful, really meaningless, but drama-filled lives of some of society's sacred monsters, Anne de Courcy's superbly written and meticulously researched book is just the thing.