The Scandalous Lady W

It was the divorce that scandalised Georgian England... She was a spirited young heiress. He was a handsome baronet with a promising career in government.

Their marriage had the makings of a fairy tale but ended as one of the most salacious and highly publicised divorces in history.

For over two hundred years the story of Lady Worsley, her vengeful husband, and her lover, George Maurice Bisset, lay forgotten. Now Hallie Rubenhold throws open a window to a rarely seen view of Georgian England, one coloured by passion, adventure and the defiance of social convention.

The book behind the major new BBC drama starring Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay).

"A fabulous story and Rubenhold tells it beautifully" (Daily Telegraph)

"Hallie Rubenhold is in a league of her own. She keeps you glued to the very last page when, exhausted, exasperated and elated, you can at last put the book down and get yourself some sleep... Nothing else in the genre is close to being this good" (Literary Review)

"Hallie Rubenhold's account of the elopement is gripping but this is far more than an 18th-century bodice-ripper. Rubenhold combines narrative skill with historical expertise, and she traces the knife-edge that women walked between social success and public disgrace with subtlety and assurance" (Spectator)

Hallie Rubenhold is a social historian and an authority on women's lives of the past. She has worked as a curator for the National Portrait Gallery and as a university lecturer. Her books include Lady Worsley's Whim, dramatized by the BBC as The Scandalous Lady W, and Covent Garden Ladies: The Extraordinary Story of Harris's List, which inspired the ITV series Harlots. She lives in London with her husband.