I've bought ebooks on sale for over a month but haven't bothered to download them onto my ereader. And now that I have a trip to fly off on this seemed the perfect download time. Except I didn't realize how many books I now have to choose from, yeek. Plus I've finally had to delete things just to free up space. It's definitely time to sit down and cull through all the Gutenberg and other I-can-not-resist-the-free fodder.

 

Because I always enjoy virtually oogling all your books when you folk have buying fests, here's my stack.

 

The real problem will now be whether to finish what I'm reading now or cheat and start yet another new book. This is exactly the kind of thing I love thinking over instead of "will I make the connecting flight?"

 

Oddly there are a couple books in here that I've already downloaded - but there must be some kind of text update that's occurred. (The Worst Hard Time also just re-downloaded itself twice. Weird.) I'm on the fence about whether I like this kind of change or not - so far none of the surprise-updated books have had major overhauls of the main text. There have only  been things like a new forward - something I don't mind. A major revision of text hasn't happened yet, and I haven't heard of more than a few cases of that happening. (And of course I don't remember specifics either. Sigh.)

 

Where am I traveling to? We'll see if I can upload a photo or two and hint once I get there. (If I can't mange a photo I'll use links somehow. Much more fun than just telling.)

As usual, price is probably only for the US website.

And as usual, this was on my price watch email alert and I have no idea where I found a recommendation - so check out a sample first.

 

Mistress of the Elgin Marbles: A Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin

by Susan Nagel

Current price: $1.99 (again, US website)

Amazon link

 

Background wikipedia link: Mary Nisbet

I note she was divorced by her husband in 1808 and went on to remarry, so there's a story there. Which isn't really told in the wikipedia. Which might be a way I got the book on my list - that kind of "this bit of history left out" usually catches my eye.

 

Why you may have heard the name bandied about - her husband, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin was the one who carted off what are now called the Elgin Marbles.

Note that there's a bit more about the divorce on Bruce's wiki - tucked in under Later Career - than Nisbet's. Interesting.

 

And because wikipedia pages can change, oh why not, I'll quote:

Mary Nisbet/Bruce:, under Second Marriage:

"Bruce divorced Nesbit in either 1807 or 1808, and went on to marry Robert Ferguson of Raith (1777–1846)."

 

And under footnote 3:

"...The deceased, George Charles Constantine Lord Bruce, who was eldest son of the Earl of Elgin, by his first marriage with Miss Nisbet, which marriage was dissolved by act of Parliament in 1808, was born the 5th of April, 1800."

 

Thomas Bruce, under Later Career:

"Elgin, who had been 'detained' in France after the rupture of the peace of Amiens, returned to Britain in 1806. Finding that he could not get the British Museum to pay what he was asking for the marbles, Elgin sued his wife's lover for an appropriately high sum. He divorced Mary, for adultery, by legal actions in 1807 and 1808 in the English and Scottish courts—and by act of parliament—which caused much public scandal. Then, on 21 September 1810, he married Elizabeth (1790–1860), youngest daughter of James Townsend Oswald of Dunnikier. Elgin moved to the European continent."

 

And under Family:

"After their marriage ended in divorce Mary later married Robert Ferguson of Raith (1777–1846) who had been cited in the divorce."

 

It's kind of amazing how little information there is considering what a BIG deal it was to get divorced in 1808, especially for adultery.

 

Oh and yes, I had to buy the book. If you look on Nisbet's wiki page you'll see how it stands alone as the only bio in the bibliography. And there are other interesting tidbits in her bio like:

 

"In November, with the permission of the Grand Vizier, she became the first woman to attend a political Ottoman ceremony. Despite being five months pregnant she was required to dress as a man."

 

And the source for that sentence? This biography.

Marie-Thérèse is not always the first name remembered in the history of the French Revolution, surrounded as she was by more famous, more tragic, more ambitious people. She was Madame Royale, the Duchess d'Angoulême, the Dauphine and (to legitimists) the Queen of France. In her own time, she was more famous as the Orphan of the Temple. Marie-Thérèse was eleven when the French Revolution began. Her one surviving sibling, Louis Charles, was four. The family was forced from their home at Versailles to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, then on August 13th, 1792 they were imprisoned in the tower of the Temple Palace. Marie-Thérèse would not leave it until September 19th, 1795, her seventeenth birthday. Over a year of her time in the Temple was in solitary confinement. The tragedy is, she was likely the luckiest of her family. Her mother, father and aunt were guillotined. Her brother Louis-Charles was tortured, brainwashed and eventually left neglected. His health deteriorated to the point that the well meaning doctor who discovered his fate was unable to break through the bureaucrcy in time to help him. Since his burial place was never establish, Marie-Thérèse was plagued with doubts as to his final fate -- and plagued as well by dozens of men claiming to be her brother. Despite the horrid events that surrounded some of the most formative years of her life, Marie-Thérèse went on to be a strong, noble and loving woman, as loyal to the country that betrayed her as she was to the uncles that were her only remaining family. She did have her faults. She was an extreme ultra-royalist, and though she had learned her father's lesson and often toured her country to be in touch with the people, she believed completely in the divinity of Bourbon blood. One does wonder if she had given her nephew, the Duc de Bordeaux, a less reactionary education, he might have accepted ruling alongside the tricolour rather than remain in exile. Her unwitting legacy to her country was the Third Republic. Nagel has an interesting relationship with her subject. While she glosses over the few people who did not like Marie-Thérèse (who does occasionally seem eye-rollingly saint-like), in her afterword Nagel shows an almost bloodthirsty desire to exhume her body to solve the mystery the Dark Countess -- who popular legend painted as the real Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte de France, switched with a double immediately after her release from the Temple. It's only when she is denied that route that Nagel turns to handwriting comparisons for a solution. On the surface, it's almost as chilling as the doctor that kept futilely trying to contact Marie-Thérèse, claiming he had taken her brother's heart from his body and wanted to return it to her...