Madame de Pompadour (Paperback)

My favourite biography is Nancy Mitford's Madame de Pompadour - a famous 18th-century French beauty who became Louis XV's mistress. The secret of a good biography is not just to tell the person's story but to create the world in which they lived. -- Julian Fellowes * Daily Express *
Mitford brings warmth to everything she touches, and her biography of Madame de Pompadour is testimony to that -- Justine Picardie * Sunday Telegraph *
Reads as if an enchantingly clever woman was pouring out the story to me on the telephone -- Raymond Mortimer
Nancy Mitford excels in depicting both the brilliant romantic showcase and the recessed world of power... No historian writing in English has given a better pen-picture of Versailles in its heyday * Time *
Incontestably her best book, Madame de Pompadour is beautifully written in a rapid, nervous, gay and enthusiastic manner which carries the reader through from first page to last -- Cyril Connolly * Sunday Times *