Divine Lola
Book Feature - Divine Lola: A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity by Cristina Morató
HBL Note: Who would you say is the first self-invented international social celebrity? Would you guess someone from the Victorian era? Lola Montez was one of the most notorious women of the 19th century, known for her “spider dance,” a scandalous performance which she presented in some of the most well-known places across Europe. But who was Lola Montez? This is the latest story told by Cristina Morató, who has dedicated her career to telling the stories of women lost to history. Scroll down to read more about DIVINE LOLA.
Book Feature - Divine Lola: A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity by Cristina Morató
Book Feature - Divine Lola: A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity by Cristina Morató
From the publisher:
Lola Montez was one of the most celebrated and notorious women of the nineteenth century. A raven-haired Andalusian who performed her scandalous “Spider Dance” in the greatest performance halls across Europe, she dazzled and beguiled all who met her with her astonishing beauty, sexuality, and shocking disregard for propriety. But Lola was an impostor, a self-invention. Born Eliza Gilbert, the beautiful Irish wild child escaped a stifling marriage and reimagined herself as Lola the Sevillian flamenco dancer and noblewoman, choosing a life of adventure, fame, sex, and scandal rather than submitting to the strictures of her era.
Lola cast her spell on the European aristocracy and the most famous intellectuals and artists of the time, including Alexandre Dumas, Franz Liszt, and George Sand, and became the obsession of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. She then set out for the New World, arriving in San Francisco at the height of the gold rush, where she lived like a pioneer and performed for rowdy miners before making her way to New York. There, her inevitable downfall was every bit as dramatic as her rise. Yet there was one final reinvention to come for the most defiant woman of the Victorian age—a woman known as a “savage beauty” who was idolized, romanticized, vilified, truly known by no one, and a century ahead of her time.
Book Feature - Divine Lola: A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity by Cristina Morató
