Few women s lives have described such an arc as that of Mary Robinson or Perdita, as she was widely known. Begining her career as an actress, royal mistress and possible blackmailer, it ended just two decades later as a Romantic poet and early feminist thinker of note. She was the subject of paintings by Gainsborough and Reynolds, and of a hundred political cartoons. Variously portrayed as a wounded innocent and a harlot, she deliberately chose, in her later career, to make a political issue of her sexuality. orn in 1758 in the shadow of Bristol cathedral, she married at 15 one Thomas Robinson, an articled clerk of seemingly good family. But Mary had barely made her curtsey to society before discovering that Robinson was little better than a conman. As things grew worse, she followed her husband into debtors prison, where she wrote her first book of poems. Encouraged by Sheridan and Garrick, who admired her beauty, she went on the stage, and over the next four years appeared in nearly 40 plays before being cast as Perdita in A Winter s Tale. The performance was witnessed by the 17-year-old Prince of Wales, and they embarked on a widely satirized liaison that saw the

Author Biography

After leaving Oxford, Sarah Gristwood worked as a journalist specializing in the arts and women's issues. She is a regular contributor to The Times, Guardian, Independent and the Evening Standard. Arbella, her historical biography of Arbella Stuart, was widely acclaimed in hardcover, and is available as a Bantam paperback. Her forthcoming anthology of women's diaries through the ages will also be published in paperback by Bantam Books in 2006.