Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino

Dino, Dorothée, duchesse de, 1793-1862Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.9
Word count
928K words
Chapters
93

Tags

English Originals General Biography Historical ReappraisalPortrait GalleryLove EntanglementsPower GameSocial ObservationFemale Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan),Author: Dino, Dorothée, duchesse de, 1793-1862,Language: English, Class: DC: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: France, Andorra, Monaco, Release Date: Jan 12, 2014

Editor's review

This memoir comes from the hand of Dorothée, Duchesse de Dino, long active in nineteenth-century French high society; her text opens a side window onto the politics and court life of the Talleyrand era. Her minute records of people's words and deeds, salon atmospheres, and diplomatic occasions carry an eyewitness's warmth and bias beyond formal histories, and are all the more interesting as historical material for it. Read it as a kind of "social observation notebook": it offers close-up portraits of the powerful and shows the currents of the age reflected in everyday conversation. The English original is elegant in diction with long sentences, suited to slow, careful reading. For readers seeking the social texture of the French Restoration and the July Monarchy, the book provides vivid supplement beyond official archives; for general readers its value lies more in the liveliness of persons and scenes than in systematic historical narrative.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the introduction or publisher's note first to clarify relationships and historical background before the main text
  2. Read through in chronological order, marking recurring names and events as you go
  3. For long sentences, excerpt them in sections and use notes to grasp the subtext of social occasions
  4. After each stage, review the table of contents to trace the author's closeness or distance in perspective

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93

FAQ

Is this book a complete historical work? No. It is a personal memoir centered on the social and political occasions the author witnessed, emphasizing personal impressions and everyday detail rather than systematic narration of historical events. Readers should treat it as historical corroboration and a portrait of the era's atmosphere.
How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for non-native readers? The original is nineteenth-century English with long sentences and elegant diction, posing a certain threshold for non-native readers. Intermediate or higher English reading ability is advised, with notes or background materials to aid comprehension.
Do I need to know who Talleyrand was first? It is advisable to learn the basics of Talleyrand's political career and historical background first; the book will then read much more smoothly. The author was close to Talleyrand, and many figures and events in the book revolve around this circle.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Dino, Dorothée, duchesse de, 1793-1862 Author

Dorothée, duchesse de Dino (1793–1862) was an important nineteenth-century French author of memoirs and chronicles. The library holds eight of her works, including Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino, the multi-volume Chronique de 1831 à 1862, and Souvenirs de la duchesse de Dino. Her writing draws on her own observations and social encounters, combining the private perspective of memoir with the chronological record of a chronicle. Her detailed, observant prose attends closely to people and to the atmosphere of the age, offering accessible first-hand material for understanding French upper-class and political life in the nineteenth century. Her works circulated in both French and English translations and retain lasting value as historical sources. Public information about her family background, education, and specific experiences is limited, and this entry makes no conjectures about them.