Other Women tells the stories of those women who belonged to a separate part of society: in some ways invisible and socially unacceptable, but in others in positions of influence and power, comfort and even luxury. They range from the common-law marriage of Edith Swan-Neck to King Harold II, who was also legally wedded to Edith of Mercia, to the liaison between Edward VII and Alice Keppel, great-grandmother of the Duchess of Cornwall. It includes the passionate loves of great artists: Rodin, Picasso, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo and Graham Greene, as well as many more men of arts and letters. And it is not confined to the lovers of famous men: the book also charts the history of 'ordinary' mistresses, those who did not live in luxury or wield influence. There are stories of power and politics, freedom of speech and the rise from slum to palace. But above all they are stories of love.

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