The Countess of Albany

by Vernon Lee

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About this book

The Countess of Albany is by Vernon Lee, with portraits. The preface calls the volume on the Countess of Albany a kind of completion of the author's previous studies of eighteenth-century Italy, and says it draws largely on Baron Alfred von Reumont's large work Die Gräfin von Albany (published in 1862). The volume is dedicated to the memory of the writer's friend Madame John Meyer.

The Duke of Fitz-James, the text says, had doubtless urged these considerations, but had not laid much weight on the fact that Charles Edward was thirty-two years older than his proposed wife. The text says Alfieri had felt his mind illumined by a sort of double revelation: he would make his name immortal, and he would create a new kind of tragedy. The text asks whether, in a woman who can drive such complicated teams of friends, the secret of such success is not more probably poverty of personality rather than richness.