The Countess of Blessington as Hostess

Abstract

Thus P. G. Patmore’s “Personal Recollections of the Late Lady Blessington,” published shortly after her death in 1849, introduces the notorious Countess, who was also a renowned hostess, visited by famous men but shunned by most women. Sexual scandal offended those who wished to uphold moral standards because Lady Blessington had been the Earl’s mistress before marriage; but maybe, her biographer Michael Sadleir suggests, she was just too attractive to be popular among women, particularly as she had caught one of the wealthiest eligible men in London, to whose hand her humble origins as an Irish commoner had not predestined her.2 Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, was no modest “strawberry” in the style of Mary Berry, no wallflower, but highly visible, an expert at self-marketing, who enjoyed standing in the limelight. Born 26 years after Berry, Blessington, simultaneously central and marginal to good society, hosted several salons in London and in Italy, acquired notoriety for her wealth as well as her financial problems, suffered from scandal, and gained through its successful marketing. If most of her guests celebrated her as a gifted conversationalist, other contemporaries found her too outspoken and dubbed her the “Countess of Cursington.”3KeywordsWoman WriterAmerican ReadershipMonthly MagazineInternational CopyrightFashionable SocietyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.