DEFIANCE: The Life and Choices of Lady Anne Barnard

Artist and hostess, poet and musician, Lady Anne Barnard lived at the heart of Georgian society. High-born yet egalitarian, she travelled to France to observe the Revolution, rejected numerous suitors, and lived independently. Her curious ways attracted gossip right into her final years when she raised an illegitimate child at her home in Berkeley Square. The Prince of Wales counted among many friends and she was brilliant in company, but she was seen as an outsider and an eccentric. When she did marry it was to a junior army officer, 12 years younger than herself, and together they withdrew to Africa. Her final years were still attracting gossip when she was raising the mysterious dark-skinned child. Anne Barnard's verse was celebrated by Walter Scott, but she was also a brilliant and indefatigable diarist. Stephen Taylor has been given access to her private papers, notably six volumes of memoirs which have never been published, which show her to be one of the unheralded chroniclers of her time and a pioneering and defiant woman. A specially interesting section is when she became the 'princess' of newly acquired Cape Town, and the book opens a window into late 18th century England, the effect of the Revolutionary War giving birth to the USA, and the French Revolution, and the impact these had on the English people to Lady Anne who was born in Scotland to a somewhat impoverished family of the minor nobility. 'Scrupulous, affectionate and well written...with a fascinating twist in the final pages.' - Virginia Nicholson. 396pp, paperback, colour photo and other illus.