“The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in an English Stately Home”, by Natalie Livingstone

512 pages, Ballantine Books, ISBN-13: 978-0553392074

The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in an English Stately Home by Natalie Livingstone (the current mistress of Cliveden) is well-titled, as the emphasis of this book is on the lives of six different women who made this English pile their home – it is NOT, I must stress, a history of Cliveden, an English stately home that has been the scene of much English history since it was built by the Duke of Buckingham for his mistress in the 1600s. Oh, there are details aplenty about the place, sure, but this is a social and not an architectural history, so keep that in mind when you crack the spine. In her introduction, Livingstone encapsulates Cliveden as “an emblem of elite misbehavior and intrigue” for 300 years, with her particular focus being on five notable women who were the mistresses of Cliveden during those three centuries:

• Anna Maria Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (née Lady Anna Maria Brudenell) by virtue of her marriage to Francis Talbot, 11^th Earl of Shrewsbury…who was killed by her lover, George Villiers, 2^nd Duke of Buckingham, in a duel over the fair (?)Anna Maria. 
• Elizabeth Hamilton, Countess of Orkney (née Elizabeth Villiers) by virtue of her marriage to Field Marshal George Hamilton, 1^st Earl of Orkney, and before that the reputed mistress of William III, King of England and Scotland, from 1680 until 1695, when she was a lady-in-waiting to his wife and co-monarch, Queen Mary II.
• Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, Princess of Wales by virtue of her marriage to Frederick, Prince of Wales and who was one of only four Princesses of Wales who never became queen consort as her eldest son succeeded her father-in-law as George III of the United Kingdom in 1760 rather than Frederick, who had died nine years earlier.
• Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland (née Howard) by virtue of her marriage to George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2^nd Duke of Sutherland, and Mistress of the Robes and great friend of Queen Victoria who was also an important figure in London’s high society and used her social position to undertake various philanthropic undertakings including the protest of the English ladies against American slavery.
• Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor by virtue of her marriage to Waldorf Astor, 2^nd Viscount Astor, an American citizen who moved to England at age 26 and made a second marriage to Waldorf Astor as a young woman in England, where the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat.

None of these women were really alike, and Livingstone’s lively and very readable style makes each sound like a wholly-formed person and not just an appendage of a husband or lover. She gracefully blends the personal lives of her leading ladies with important events of their day and the architecture and interior design of the estate itself. The house at Cliveden was built for controversy, and Livingstone gives us the colorful history of the house; quite deliberately and tangentially, we also get a unique view of British history through the eyes of the influential women who resided there. And make no mistake, these women, though officially powerless, wielded their unofficial power like rapiers. This is "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" from the 17^th to 20^th Centuries as the wealthy and powerful denizens of the house seem to be constantly embroiled with politics, mixed up with royalty, and often misbehaving in a grand fashion. Twice burnt down and rebuilt, the house still stands grandly, a monument to the triumphs and follies of its owners and a magnificent example of a great English Country House.

“A Whisper of Blood: 18 Stories of Vampirism”, edited by Ellen Datlow

287 pages, William Morrow & Co., ISBN-13: 978-0688103613

Way back when I had a little horror fixation that has, mercifully, passed, but during that time I discovered A Whisper of Blood. It is a rare treat to find such an affordable anthology from award-winning editor Ellen Datlow; in fact, the only thing better than the price is the collection itself. This edition includes not one but two Datlow anthologies, Blood Is Not Enough (originally published in 1989) and A Whisper of Blood (originally published in 1991). The stories herein range in time (the earliest, first published in 1949, is a timeless classic by Fritz Leiber, The Girl With the Hungry Eyes), subject (vampirism in a myriad of forms, everything from classic blood-suckers to modern, even mechanistic vampires of emotions, health, hope, and more), and taste. Never one to shy away from the dark, Datlow has included several cruel tales, such as Down Among the Dead Men, or the controversial Dirty Work, story set in a WWII death camp, and The Pool People, a brutal exploration of emotional pillage, to name but a few, along with more typically seductive stories of vampirism. The vampires themselves range from comically sympathetic, such as Rose in Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, to oddly helpful, like Davis Hallinan in Warm Man, to remorseless hunters, Sheila Remarque in To Feel Another's Woe. Not all the stories are told from the perspective of the victim: A Child of Darkness is a beautifully realistic exploration of how a modern vampire might come to be. As Wet As Wet Can Be takes a more realistic approach, even while it turns a classic children’s fantasy tale on its head. At the other end of the spectrum, there are tales of magical worlds, like Varicose Worms, not to be missed (unless you have a weak stomach), future worlds, and the darkly romantic world of times past found in The Silver Collar. Some authors you will know, like the aforementioned Leiber, Harlan Ellison, Tannith Lee; many will leave you longing to know them and their works better. Not a bad little collection, and cheap, too.

“The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt”, by Toby Wilkinson

656 pages, Random House Trade Paperbacks, ISBN-13: 978-0553384901

I have been fascinated with Ancient Egypt since I can remember (c’mon, now, who hasn’t?!) and The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson is nothing short of magnificent, with a narrative thread focusing on both the glorious and gritty sides of Egyptian life as fostered by the Egyptian state’s exertion of coercive power. Though organized chronologically, Wilkinson returns time and again to the problems of state power: states rise and fall, power ebbs and flows, but Egypt’s pharaohs attempted to uphold the forces of truth and order against those of chaos and disarray, ancient themes in Egyptian philosophy. To do so required developing state infrastructures and the means of coercing the appropriation of both labor and material goods to build the glorious monuments that so capture the public’s imagined Egypt. From the pyramids to Abu Simbel, the projection of Egyptian glory depended on breaking the backs of the people who toiled incessantly in service to the state; indeed, the twin themes of ideology – religion, royal divinity – and administration – bureaucracies, taxation, etc. – repeatedly resurface to highlight just how the state secured support for its regime and managed that support. When both aspects of state control broke down, Egypt entered periodically into times of disorder and chaos.

Readers expecting a romantic view of Ancient Egypt focused on the archaeological treasures will probably be disappointed to be reminded of the costs of Egyptian grandeur…readers hoping for a more cultural approach to Egyptian history (an extended exploration of religion, art, music, and the like) will probably be less satisfied with Wilkinson’s focus upon the state. To be sure, Wilkinson brings these matters up when they are needed but gives them no extended treatment, but the excellent bibliography and notes, however, do provide additional resources to investigate topics of interest; moreover, the notes detail Wilkinson’s own interpretive engagement with Egyptian historiography, making his book much more valuable to others besides the casual reader. Furthermore, in spite of the book’s populist tone, readers may be put off by density of content of some of the chapters. At times, a bewildering array of names and places rush off the page, forcing the reader to consult his handy copies of The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt or the Penguin Atlas of Ancient Egypt (like I did). Those without sufficient reference material would perhaps have been well served by a glossary, which, although it does lengthen the book, does provide readers with a handy reference when there are simply too many names to conjure with. The writing style itself is fairly popular, with few words that might trip up readers. Frequent references to British history – especially comparisons to how monarchies have exercised state power across the ages – might be off-putting to American readers, but it seems to me that the implied arguments by analogy do serve a purpose in highlighting how states have little changed since the Ancient Egyptians invented statehood.

Overall, Toby Wilkinson’s The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt seems to combine the best features of the histories that I’ve come to love. To me, the joy of a book is being able to re-read it and come to new insights and appreciation each time and I am sure that such will be the case with Wilkinson’s tome.