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Beautiful For Ever

  • Imprint: Vintage

  • ISBN: 9780099570134

  • Length: 320  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 20mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 235g

  • RRP: £12.99

Beautiful For Ever

  • Madame Rachel of Bond Street - Cosmetician, Con-Artist and Blackmailer

A TRUE STORY OF LIES, BEAUTY AND BLACKMAIL IN VICTORIAN LONDON
_________________________
Madame Rachel had everything.

A Mayfair address; the title of 'purveyor to Her Majesty the Queen'; a shop full of exotic, expensive creams and potions; and a clientele of the aristocratic, the rich - and the gullible.

Little did they suspect that Madame Rachel had once been a poor fish-fryer in a disease-ridden, grubby corner of Victorian London. Her shop in New Bond Street lured her wealthy clients in their droves, enticed by the promise of eternal beauty. What they found there was a con-woman and fraudster who made a career out of lies, treachery and the desperate hopes of women wanting to be 'beautiful for ever'.

Beautiful For Ever is a thrilling tale of love affairs, scandal, blackmail, high-profile court cases, suicide and fraud, with the extraordinary Madame Rachel right at the centre of it all.

  • Imprint: Vintage

  • ISBN: 9780099570134

  • Length: 320  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 20mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 235g

  • RRP: £12.99

Reviews

  • A remarkable story... Rappaport handles her scandalous Victorian melodrama with energy and aplomb, and produces a richly entertaining portrait of the seamy side of 19th century society

    Daily Mail

  • Madame Rachel's story, which has been superbly researched by Rappaport, is intriguing in itself [and] sheds a fascinating light on the ladies of Victorian society

    Daily Telegraph

  • Beautiful For Ever is one of those un-put-downable surprises that makes reading worthwhile… This book has the same mix of forensic investigation and light touch that makes Kate Summerscale’s books so interesting

    Big Issue

  • Speaks volumes about vanity and Victorian attitudes to women

    Sophie Morris, Independent

  • [Beautiful For Ever] is, blissfully, proof that there is still simply nothing quite like a good Victorian scandal. Rappaport excels again in this thoroughly researched account of Madame Rachel...this is a well-paced read that tells us something about the modern obsession with appearance while remaining deliciously Victorian at its core

    Waterstone's Books Quarterly

More from this Author

About the Author

Helen Rappaport

Helen Rappaport is an historian and Russianist with specialisms in the Victorians and revolutionary Russia. Her books include No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War, Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs, Beautiful For Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street – Cosmetician, Con-Artist and Blackmailer, Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy; Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses and Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd, 1917. A fluent Russian speaker, she has translated many classic Russian plays (including all of Chekhov’s) and was historical consultant to Tom Stoppard’s National Theatre trilogy The Coast of Utopia (2002). She is also a frequent contributor to television and radio documentaries, most recently Russia’s Lost Princesses (BBC2, 2014). She lives in West Dorset.

Helen Rappaport

Read more

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Features

The forgotten Women's Death Battalion of the Russian Revolution

Helen Rappaport, author of The Race to Save the Romanovs, tells the forgotten story of the women whose voice of protest helped bring about the Russian Revolution
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Features

The Race to Save the Romanovs Cover Design

The Race to Save the Romanovs author Helen Rappaport and her editor discuss the inspiration behind the book's cover

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