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Inspired by her great-great-grandmother's tempestuous relationship with the men in her life and absolute disregard for convention, Daphne du Maurier delivers a captivating piece, featuring one of her most audacious and ambitious heroines yet. After abandoning her drunken husband, and unwilling to return to the crippling poverty of her youth, Mary Anne begins to work as a high-class escort. Fortune favours her as she finds herself in the arms of The Duke of York and Albany, Frederick Augustus.
Becoming his mistress, Mary Anne is seduced by the Duke's lavish lifestyle and the power it bestows on her. She uses her charms and his title to trade in military commissions, venturing down a dark and seductive path which few women would have dared to go down.
Set in the Regency period, du Maurier contrasts the luxurious and lavish lifestyle of the upper echelons of society with that of the impoverished lower class. She also highlights the importance that Victorians placed on female virtue and the consequent ticking clock which Mary Anne would always be up against. Much like her ancestor, Daphne du Maurier was an intelligent, creative and resilient woman. A celebrated author and playwright who mastered the romantic and gothic genres, Daphne's masterpieces continue to entertain and intrigue us today and Mary Anne is no exception.
Narrator Biography
Carole Boyd trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama where her vocal talents earned her the principal national prize for voice as well as the Carleton Hobbs award. She is a British actress, best known for her performances in The Thief Lord, Peter Kay's Animated All Star Band: The Official BBC Children in Need Medley, Bodger and Badger, Virtual Murder and Hetty Wainthrop Investigates.
Carole voices the character of Lynda Snell in the BBC Radio 4 programme, The Archers as well as all of the female characters and most of the schoolboys in Postman Pat. Her audiobook narrations include The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Atonement, Jane Eyre, The Turn of the Screw and Middlemarch.
©1954 Daphne du Maurier (P)2014 Audible, Inc.