'Stranger than fiction, but twice as fascinating' Lucy Worsley
On the morning of 3 June 1914, Henry Sackville-West, driven to despair by his failed claim to be the legitimate heir to one of the largest and stateliest houses in England, shot himself. His father, Lord Sackville of Knole, had had five children from an affair with a beautiful Spanish dancer. While the oldest became mistress of Knole, the other illegitimate children were erased from the historical record.
The Disinherited tells how these siblings struggled for their father's love and against the 'stain' of illegitimacy which condemned them to lives of poverty and disappointment. An absorbing and moving tale of sibling rivalry, it reveals the secrets and lies that lay at the heart of an English dynasty.
Autorentext
After studying History at Oxford University, Robert Sackville-West worked in publishing, founding Toucan Books in 1985, which creates illustrated non-fiction books for an international market. He now combines that with chairing Knole Estates, the property and investment company which runs the Sackville family's interests at Knole. In 2008, he and his wife and three children moved in the house, which has been occupied by the Sackville family for 400 years. The incredible history of Knole and the Sackville family, Inheritance, was published in 2010.
Klappentext
In the small hours of the morning of 3 June 1914, a woman and her husband were found dead in a sparsely furnished apartment in Paris. It was only when the identity of the couple was revealed in the English press a fortnight later that the full story emerged. The man, Henry Sackville-West, had shot himself minutes after the death of his wife from cancer; but Henry's suicidal despair had been driven equally by the failure of his claim to be the legitimate son of Lord Sackville and heir to Knole. The Disinherited reveals the secrets and lies at the heart of an English dynasty, unravelling the parallel lives of Henri's four illegitimate siblings: in particular his older sister, Victoria, who on becoming Lady Sackville and mistress of Knole, by marriage, consigned her brothers and sisters to lives of poverty and disappointment.