The Viceroy's Daughters
By (Author) Anne De Courcy
Orion Publishing Co
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
1st October 2001
5th July 2001
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
941.0820922
Paperback
464
Width 132mm, Height 196mm, Spine 35mm
348g
Irene (born 1896), Cynthia (b.1898) and Alexandria (b.1904) were the three daughters of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India 1898-1905.The three sisters were at the very heart of the fast and glittering world of the Twenties and Thirties. Irene had love affairs in the glamorous Melton Mowbray hunting set. Cynthia (Cimmie) married Oswald Mosley, joining him first in the Labour Party before following him into fascism. Alexandra (Baba), the youngest and most beautiful, married the Prince of Waless best friend Fruity Metcalfe. On Cimmies early death in 1933 Baba flung herself into a long and passionate affair with Mosley and a liaison with Mussolinis ambassador to London, Count Dino Grandi, while enjoying the romantic devotion of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. The war finds them based at the Dorch (the Dorchester Hotel) doing good works. At the end of their extraordinary lives, Irene and Baba have become, rather improbably, pillars of the establishment, Irene being made one of the very first Life Peers in 1958 for her work with youth clubs.
Anne de Courcy is an acclaimed journalist and biographer