Barbara Jeffery - Böcker
Visar alla böcker från författaren Barbara Jeffery. Handla med fri frakt och snabb leverans.
2 produkter
2 produkter
189 kr
Kommande
Little Willy Carson left school in 1873 at the age of 12 to work in his father's struggling wigmaking company. Two years later he entered the dressing room of the notoriously diva-like Adelina Patti in Covent Garden, the most famous opera singer in the world. “You,” she shrieked, “and who are you?”“I am little Willy Clarkson,” “And please, what are you here to do?” “Your hair.”By the 1920s, he owned the Duchess Theatre in London and his company had over 100 employees and 50,000 costumes in stock. He was a friend of Lily Langtry, Marie Lloyd and Dame Nellie Melba. Everyone in the theatre world knew Little Willy. So did royalty. He made wigs and costumes for Queen Victoria’s amateur dramatics, for all the great actors, for military tournaments. Willy was a well-known sight around Covent Garden with his fluttering eyelashes and his rouged cheeks, a regular at the trendiest bars and restaurants.But there was a darker side to this gay pioneer. After his death - a suspicious one - Lloyds underwriters filed suits against his estate for fraudulent fire insurance claims, and won. During the trial, it emerged that six other fires and one gas explosion had been reported by Clarkson at his premises in 1895, 1898, 1901, 1910, 1915, 1918 and 1924. What a life.
214 kr
Skickas
Monty Newton and Rodolphe Lemoine must be two of the most outrageous conmen in history. When the Rajah Sir Hari Singh of Kashmir came to London in 1919, his first time in Europe, between visits to the King and Queen and the Prince of Wales he was introduced by his aide de camp to Mrs Maud (Maudie) Robinson. They became lovers and went to Paris for Christmas where they were ‘discovered’ in bed together. The Mayfair Mob had set the whole thing up. The Rajah’s aide de camp masterminded the scam and Sir Hari paid up to avoid citation in a divorce case. What happened next was sensational: a court case that gripped the world for eight days in 1924. The British government imposed the greatest secrecy on the scandal and kept files closed for a hundred years rather than the usual thirty.Monty was saved by the intervention of his partner in crime Lemoine, a German working for French intelligence, who - in 1931 - bought the working manuals of the new German Enigma encoding machine from a clerk, so that - in 1932 - a young Polish mathematician could crack the code. This is five years before Alan Turing even thought of studying cryptology.In between the greatest blackmail pay-out in history and buying the code, Chancers follows Newton and Lemoine around the world, from Monte Carlo to Mexico - always staying in the best hotels - as they con the rich and gullible out of their millions.During Barbara Jeffery’s research at the India Office Library and the National Archives she has unearthed an extraordinary story: one document was opened specially for her and she was obliged to read it in a locked room.