A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby

A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby

4.09 of 5 stars 4.09  ·  rating details  ·  258 ratings  ·  52 reviews
The biography of Jane Digby, an ‘enthralling tale of a nineteenth-century beauty whose heart – and hormones – ruled her head.’ Harpers and Queen


A celebrated aristocratic beauty, Jane Digby married Lord Ellenborough at seventeen. Their divorce a few years later was one of England s most scandalous at that time. In her quest for passionate fulfilment she had lovers which inc...more
Paperback, 365 pages
Published June 2nd 2003 by Fourth Estate (first published 1995)
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Community Reviews

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Caroline
An amazing book about an amazing woman. Considering I had never heard of Jane Digby before I read this, and even had to Google her first to decide if I even wanted to read this book, I was absolutely fascinated by her. By the time this book ended with her death I was completely enthralled by her life and felt quite bereft to come to the end.

Jane was born into a rich Georgian family, renowned as a great beauty, married a well-known lord and politician when she was still a teenager, and was no mor...more
Jenny Brown
This is one of those books where I have to give the biographers a good rating for writing a competent biography, but wish I could give her subject two stars for a poorly conducted life.

As other reviewers here have noted Jane Digby was anything but a feminist role model. I have rarely read of someone whose entire life was so dominated by sexual desire and who was as willing to sacrifice anyone who stood in the way of its gratification.

Though Lovell quotes others as saying the Digby was intelligen...more
Vicky
The biography of Jane Digby reads like the best of fiction. It is difficult to believe that this aristocratic woman with all the wealth of her class and the predictable future, managed to live a life so unexpected, so unconventional, full of adventures, with complete disregard to traditions. She always followed her heart, changing husbands and lovers, did not attach herself to her children, having many, was a close friend and confidant of kings and diplomats and spent the happiest last 25 years...more
Marguerite Kaye
This was recommended to me, and I am SOOOO glad it was.

One of the things that I find difficult to take as an author is when a reviewer tells me that what I've written for a 19th Century heroine is unbelievable. What Jane Digby did in her real lifetime makes my heroines seem incredibly tame by comparison, and I'm never going to feel like I've stretched the boundaries again. Married at 17, divorced at 22, she included several noblement, a king, a prince, a Greek bandit and most notable a Bedouin...more
Rosann
Although Jane Digby was born during the Regency Period of England, Jane Austin she isn’t.
The Regency period is known for the excesses of its aristocracy. Jane Digby’s upbringing and her adult years through the waning of this period certainly influenced her choices. She indulges in a hedonistic lifestyle, never adjusting her moral values to the Victorian standard. During her youthful first marriage Jane's family (and it seems the author) blame her self-indulgence on hanging around with the wrong...more
J.D. Field
The heroine of this story kicks ass in the most old fashioned way. And when I say old fashioned I'm not referring to the fact she's from the 1800s.

She kicks off when she's only 16, emerging from the family mansion in the country, to take London by storm and marry a rich, powerful man, twice her age.

Lady Jane Digby is something else, though. For her the most powerful impulse in the world is falling in love. And she falls in love, again, and again and again, and each time leaving the previous love...more
Kari
I picked up this book because I was interested in learning more about the infamous Jane Digsby. She was a remarkable women who was brought up in the 1800's as an Elite English women... She was scandalous because she divorced many men (during a time when divorce was not allowed) and she lived around the world... I was interested because she spent the latter part of her life married to a Bedouin in Syria.

It was an interesting book but written in biographical form so it was a lot to take in. The a...more
Maximilian Sinsteden
This book will make anyone with any interest in history swoon at the excitement! How incredible that one woman, who to many people have not heard off, could have such an incredible life that lends to biography writing like Dan Brown lends to action-packed movie producing.
Not only was I blown away by the story that unfurls between the covers of this gem of a book, but I was floored once again by the thoroughness of research that a good biographer must attain to really craft the best narrative a t...more
MAP
IT'S FINALLY OVER! This book should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention as a torture device. Geez. Where to begin?

The subject: Jane Digby is presented by the author and by others as a feminist icon - a woman who was sexually free, an adventurer, and open to new experiences and ideas that most women in her age wouldn't even dream of. The problem with that is it's all a complete lie. Yes, Jane Digby had sex. With a lot of men. But here's the pattern of the first 40 years of her life: Find a man t...more
Deb
I read this years ago and was fascinated by this biography of a well-born Englishwoman who married even higher, than ran off with her lover to Europe. He deserted her, she married a German nobleman and probably had an affair with King Ludwing (not the really crazy one. She ran offwith a handsome greek and married him, but dumped him when she caught him cheating on her and ran off to the hillsto live in a cave with a bandit chieftan and finally ended up married to a Beduin prince half her age. Sh...more
Paula
Jan 16, 2008 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone wanting a historic, factual and interesting read
Recommended to Paula by: Sharon Brooker
I re-read this book every year. I think it's that good!

Lady Jane Digby was the daughter of one of England's peers and married the nam who was arguably the catch of the season, Lord Ellenborough. Unfortunately for Jane's happiness, it wasn't a love match from his POV and fairly impestuously, she threw herself into an affair. Not very discretely, either. Their marriage ended in one of the first recorded divorces, humiliating for both families, but Jane still refused to bow down to societies' whims...more
Kay
What a life! The key word in the title is scandalous, and Jane Digby was just that - a well-born Victorian lady who was married no fewer than four times (and that's no counting the lovers she never got around to marrying). It would be too easy to dislike Jane Digby, as she seems to have been a foolishly enslaved by notions of romantic love, but she's too riveting to become seriously annoyed with, not to mention that at the time there were few other ways for her to channel her astonishing energy...more
Claudia Dijkstra
A most wonderful book! One comment about page 329. Lady Anne Blunt bought several jewels from her friend Jane after her passing and later gave them to her daughter Lady Judith Wentworth. It is stated that Lady Wentworth died childless. This is not true. One of them Lady Anne Lytton I met many times during the early seventies at Newbuildings Place, where her grandfather also a good friend of Jane Digby is buried on the estate, a big tomb near the old house.
Lynn Buschhoff
This biography will appeal to those that like to remember that there have always been strong, extraordinary women. It also gives an insight into the reality of what it was like to live the fantasy portrayed in old Rudolph Valentino movies like "the sheik". Jane Digby not only was the love of a sheik, she was quite a bit older than her husband and she certainly was not a submissive wife. Very interesting.
Lexi
A well-researched and mostly well-written biopic of an absolutely fascinating woman. I particularly loved the last half of the book, detailing Jane's life as the older, European wife of a Bedouin Sheikh. Fascinating personal life details, but also the details of the corruption of the Turkish Empire (and the British as well) and how it impacted residents. Brilliant book!
Joe
Interestsing story about Admiral Digby's Daughter. Daughter of a hero of Trafalgar, Jane is decades ahead of her time as a modern thinker on how a woman should shape her life and that of those around her. She scandalizes Europe with the indulgence of her love and sexual appetites, going from earls to dukes to kings and winding up in the arms of a sheik. With her sheik jane was living the modified life of an English noble woman and a bedouin. I thought from the cover it would be a romance novel,...more
Denise
This book was great although a slow read for me. The documented history that the author had to research is extensive and the diary excerpts from some 50 yrs of Janes life along with photos & Janes sketches are inspiring. I would highly recommend this unique book.
Janet
It is like reading a modern story in another century.. I fearless woman who does not follow the rules of the society she was born into .
Great work writing a biography which i find exciting to read ( and that is not always the case with reading biography)
Sarah Souther
Lovell's writing doesn't stand out, but the life of Jane herself is so fascinating that it hardly matters. She's not always the most sympathetic character (certainly a terrible mother), but she is definitely a Character, and a romantic one, at that.
Roberta
Amazing story. I very often read a book quickly, and just as quickly forget all about it. Not this one. It has stayed with me and made me want to follow in her steps, visit Damascus, find her villa, her garden. What a life.
Diane
I was partway through 'A Scandalous Life' when I realized that the author also wrote 'Sound of Wings', the Amelia Earhart biography that I'd just finished. Like Amelia, Jane was a woman who lived her life way beyond the cultural norms of her time.

Born in 1807 into a wealthy British family, Jane defied marriage vows and family expectations. Her sexual prowess was legendary. But, the part of the book that I found the most interesting was later in her life she moved to the middle east to be a shei...more
Susan
Wow, what a life! This was a great biography of a bad, bad, fickle woman, who had, without a doubt, the most interesting life. Who could not love her badness? I will re-read this one some day.
Jude Keen
The life of the aristocratic Lady Jane Digby (1807 - 1881); a notorious and passionate beauty who ended her life in Damascus as the wife of a Bedouin Sheikh. In the intervening years she married at 17, eloped with an Austrian prince. married a German baron, had affairs with among others, the king of Bavaria,a Corfiot count and an Albanian brigand general before finally finding romantic fulfillment at nearly 50 from marrying the Bedouin nobleman 20 years her junior. A dramatic and sympathetic por...more
Amy
Not a perfect biography - the author got bogged down in trivial details at certain points in the book. But wow! What a life! Jane Digby was amazing. Highly recommended.
Annika Cleeve
I loved this book. Strong, independant, sexual woman, who didn't worry what others thought of her. She knew how to live life to it's fullest.
Absolutely couldn't put it down.
Pascale
Even though I despaired at the choices Jane made as a young woman, being so easily led and driven by her fickle hart, I could not stop reading it.
Hlawton75
A really amazing story about a remarkable woman who was a real adventurer and a romantic- unique for her time - a true story that reads like fiction.
Ahf
Her life is fascinating, and the book had too much detail and would make a great mini-series. Could be a great venue for an emerging actress.
Glynis
Amazing story of a young woman in the 19th century, who lived a very interesting life on three continents. Possibly the original cougar?
Jutka
I have found this book greatly disappointing. The first part reads like the National Enquirer and the second a To-Do list. One would think that both Miss Digby and the author had gained an unparalleled depth of self-reflection and observation given the wealth of experience romatically, sexually, culturally and geographically made available to the heroine of Lowell's biography. None of the above is evident in either Miss Digby's diaries cited or the accompanying descriptions by the author. As it...more
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Rebel Heart: The Scandalous Life of Jane Digby (Hardcover)
Mary was an accountant and company director for 20 years before becoming a writer. She wrote her first book in 1981 at the age of 40, while recovering from a broken back which was the result of a riding accident. She returned to accountancy but during the following 5 years she also published two further non-fiction books that were written in her spare time.

She lives in the New Forest in Hampshire,...more
More about Mary S. Lovell...
The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth, 1527-1608 Straight on Till Morning: The Biography of Beryl Markham The Churchills: In Love and War The Sound of Wings: the Life of Amelia Earhart

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