The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2) or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols.

A richly woven anthology of anecdotes, this work charts how women’s beauty, virtue and wit have shaped the imagination of poets from the age of the troubadours right through the Restoration and into the early eighteenth century. The author moves beyond simple portraiture, using each story to reveal the shifting ideals of love and elegance that guided the lyric muse as it passed from the chivalric courts of Charles I to the witty salons of Queen Anne.

Readers encounter familiar names—Carew’s idealised Celia, Waller’s Sacharissa, Pope’s Martha Blount, Swift’s Stella and Vanessa, and Burns’s Highland Mary—alongside lesser‑known muses such as Vittoria Colonna, Veronica Gambara and Madame du Châtelet. By juxtaposing Italian sentiment, French gallantry and English wit, the volume offers a vivid glimpse of how personal affection fed public verse, inviting listeners to hear the tender, often turbulent, dialogue between poet and beloved that defined centuries of literary romance.