Pepita
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: fair to poor. Jacket: No dust jacket. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
At the crossroads of biography and memoir, Pepita unfolds the extraordinary life of Josefa Durán — known as Pepita — a celebrated Spanish dancer of the nineteenth century whose beauty, charisma, and scandalous romances captivated European high society. V. Sackville-West chronicles her grandmother's meteoric rise from the streets of Málaga to the grandest stages of Europe, and the passionate, illicit liaison that would ultimately shape the author's own aristocratic bloodline. The narrative weaves together meticulous archival research with intimate family memory, presenting a portrait of a woman who defied every convention of her age. Sackville-West brings to the page the same lyrical precision and psychological acuity that distinguished her celebrated novels, drawing on court documents, letters, and personal recollection to reconstruct a life almost too dramatic for fiction. Pepita stands as a testament to the author's gift for illuminating the tension between freedom and duty, passion and propriety — themes that defined not only her grandmother's world but her own. A work that blurs the boundary between history and art, it leaves the reader questioning where the dancer's story ends and the writer's truly begins.
Author: V. Sackville-West
Format: Hardback
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Condition: fair to poor. Jacket: No dust jacket. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
At the crossroads of biography and memoir, Pepita unfolds the extraordinary life of Josefa Durán — known as Pepita — a celebrated Spanish dancer of the nineteenth century whose beauty, charisma, and scandalous romances captivated European high society. V. Sackville-West chronicles her grandmother's meteoric rise from the streets of Málaga to the grandest stages of Europe, and the passionate, illicit liaison that would ultimately shape the author's own aristocratic bloodline. The narrative weaves together meticulous archival research with intimate family memory, presenting a portrait of a woman who defied every convention of her age. Sackville-West brings to the page the same lyrical precision and psychological acuity that distinguished her celebrated novels, drawing on court documents, letters, and personal recollection to reconstruct a life almost too dramatic for fiction. Pepita stands as a testament to the author's gift for illuminating the tension between freedom and duty, passion and propriety — themes that defined not only her grandmother's world but her own. A work that blurs the boundary between history and art, it leaves the reader questioning where the dancer's story ends and the writer's truly begins.