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Information taken from: Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
Georgiana launched into London society regardless and due to her high rank, enormous fortune and youthful beauty, she caught the public’s imagination. A celebrated beauty, Georgiana was constantly written about in the newspapers and her sense of style was reported with great interest. Yet her true passion was gambling. Gambling parties were all the rage and although Georgiana was technically wealthy, her husband controlled the family finances, giving her only an allowance. When her debts exceeded the generous four-thousand pounds annually given to her by the duke, her mother never failed to admonish her for her gambling debts. “Play at whist, commerce, backgammon, trictrac or chess,” Lady Spencer wrote, “but never at quinze, lou, brag, faro, hazard or any games of chance.” The advice went unheeded.Despite that she was married to one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom, she was constantly borrowing money from her friends, from the Prince of Wales, and would flatter the wealthy banker Thomas Coutts with her friendship in exchange for him settling some of her debts. Constantly strapped for cash, her addiction to gambling threatened to bring shame on her and when she was died at age of 48, the Duchess was deeply in debt owing in today’s equivalent of £3,720,000. The Duchess hid her debts from her husband until after her death, where upon he remarked, and “Is that all”?
The Duchess anonymously published an autobiographical novel titled “The Sylph”, which was a success, going into four printings. Though she never publicly acknowledging her authorship, Georgiana did admit it in private. The book was a thinly veiled autobiography about an aristocratic bride seduced into wickedness and was written during one of her many attempts at reform from gambling and her fast lifestyle in public and in private.
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