Who would you rather be? Hagar the slave girl who had Abraham’s first child, Ishmael, and was later forced into the wilderness with her adolescent son because of Sarah’s jealousy? Or Alice Keppel, mistress of King Edward, who was called to the king’s death bed by the reluctant Queen Alexandra? The king even forced his wife to accept a kiss from his favourite mistress, and Mrs. Keppel lived to a happy end with her complacent husband, who was not abashed to use the king’s financial generosity for his own advancement.
A History of Mistresses by Elizabeth Abbott is a can’t-put-down romp through a kaleidoscope of places and times. She begins her study with Hagar and Pericles’ beloved mistress, Aspasia, and ends with Fidel Castro’s heartbroken cast-asides and the comfortably ensconced Camilla Parker Bowles. This is not Abbott’s first book about the history of sexuality. Trained as a historian and formerly Dean of Women at Trinity College at the University of...
Sondra Gotlieb is author of, among other books, True Confessions, which won the Leacock Prize for Humour, and Wife Of, which was a finalist for the same prize. She currently writes a humour column for the National Post.
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