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This romance of “The Beggar’s Opera” introduces many real persons but all imaginatively treated. Lord Baltimore, “The American Prince,” as he was called at the time in society, has come down to us with a reputation for heartlessness of which I have made the most, and it would be difficult for any novelist to exaggerate the whims of the famous and beautiful Duchess of Queensberry—or Queensbury, as I have preferred to spell her title, that being her own and (generally speaking) the contemporary method.
THE CHASTE DIANA
E. Barrington
,
Copyright
, 1923,
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
Published, April, 1923
Second printing, April, 1923
Third printing, January, 1925
Fourth printing, January, 1925
Fifth printing, July, 1925
Sixth printing, October, 1925
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
PREFACE
“
The Chaste Diana.
”
This romance of “The Beggar’s Opera” introduces many real persons but all imaginatively treated. Lord Baltimore, “The American Prince,” as he was called at the time in society, has come down to us with a reputation for heartlessness of which I have made the most, and it would be difficult for any novelist to exaggerate the whims of the famous and beautiful Duchess of Queensberry—or Queensbury, as I have preferred to spell her title, that being her own and (generally speaking) the contemporary method. The Duke of Bolton’s marriage I have antedated. My picture of the Royalties is fully sanctioned by history. As to the charming figure of Lavinia Fenton, it offers a wide field to the imagination, and will doubtless from time to time be filled in according to the man that draws it and the mind that conceives it, for there are few records. But what is known of her story is compatible with the picture I present.
E. Barrington
,
Canada.
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IANA still bound by the Duchess’s command sat where my Lady Fanny left her, her mind full of what had passed. So that was the story. ’Twas a chivalrous one to take a girl’s fancy, it must be owned, an…
HE greatest lady in England, Queen Caroline, sat in her apartment in Kensington Palace on Sunday night a week later, drinking her chocolate, with Lord Hervey and the Princess Emily in attendance, all …
T was in the great white and gold withdrawing room of Queensbury House that her Grace discoursed that Sunday night to her friends and partisans on the insult received from the King. “Lord!” says Lady …
HEN Diana left the playhouse on the Saturday, a heavy rain was falling through the grimy dark, and she muffled her head in her hood and stepped swiftly from the door into the chair, her little feet sp…
HE Duke, on leaving my Lord Baltimore with his former inamorata, strode down into the street, and stood for a moment in deep thought. ’Twas Mr. Rich was in his mind—that and the resolution to have don…
N Queensbury House, the Duchess sat that night in her library to hear the story from Bolton. Diana slept in her own room, worn out and wearied beyond all power of speech or even of thought. In his spl…
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ATHERINE QUEENSBURY was near beside them before the two looked up from their transport of joy and grief. ’Twas in Diana’s character that she drew not her hands from him away as though ashamed or flutt…
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