{"product_id":"2026200012979-secondhand-the-courtesans-the-demi-monde-in-nineteenth-century-france","title":"The Courtesans: The Demi-Monde In Nineteenth-Century France","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeneath the glittering gaslit boulevards of nineteenth-century Paris, a shadowy world of glamour, scandal, and calculated seduction thrived — the world of the grandes horizontales, the celebrated courtesans who wielded extraordinary power over emperors, artists, and aristocrats alike. Joanna Richardson's The Courtesans: The demi-monde in nineteenth-century France chronicles the lives of these remarkable women — from the legendary Cora Pearl to La Paiva — who, born into poverty or obscurity, clawed their way to the heights of Second Empire society through beauty, wit, and fierce ambition, reshaping the cultural and social landscape of an era in the process.\n\nRichardson brings the precision of a meticulous historian and the narrative flair of a gifted storyteller to this vivid portrait of a vanished world, drawing on contemporary memoirs, letters, and press accounts to reconstruct lives that were at once celebrated and condemned. The book stands as a landmark work of social history, illuminating the contradictions of bourgeois Victorian morality, the commodification of femininity, and the surprising agency these women exercised within the rigid confines of a patriarchal society. For anyone fascinated by the hidden currents of power beneath the belle époque's polished surface, Richardson's account poses a provocative question: were these women victims of their age, or its most audacious masters?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49210229293275,"sku":"2026200012979-SECONDHAND","price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/b6253b04-8cca-4004-a2c4-c06a097281ba.png?v=1788267604","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200012979-secondhand-the-courtesans-the-demi-monde-in-nineteenth-century-france","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}