I read a lot, and I keep just about every book I like or think is worthy of future reference. Needless to say, I have a pretty comprehensive collection of books on historical events, places and people. Here is a working list of some I recommend…

Non-Fiction
The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England by Amanda Vickers
Court Lady and Country Wife: Two Noble Sisters in Seventeenth-Century England by Lita-Rose Betcherman
Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox by Stella Tillyard
Marie Antoinette’s Daugher by Alice Curtis Desmond
Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill (two volumes) by Ralph G. Martin
Ladies of the Grand Tour by Brian Dolan
My Blue Notebook, The Diary of Lian de Pougy
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
Strapless (John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X) by Deborah Davis
The Exquisite Exile (the life of Peggy Shippen Arnold) by Harry Stanton Tillotson
The Bouviers by John H. Davis
Daughters of Britannia: The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives by Katie Hickman

Fiction
The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman
Dangerous Liasons by Chodoleros de Laclos
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The Constant Sinner (also titled Babe Gordon) by Mae West
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Royal Physician’s Visit: A Novel by Per Olov Enquist
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
Wives and Daughers by Elizabeth Gaskill
The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott