The author of the bestselling Leonardo’s Swans traverses
the centuries into the hearts of two extraordinary women to reveal the
passions, ambitions, and controversies surrounding the Elgin Marbles.
The
Elgin Marbles have been displayed in the British Museum for nearly two
hundred years, and for just as long they have been the center of a
raging controversy. In Stealing Athena, Karen Essex chronicles
the Marbles’ amazing journey through the dynamic narratives of Mary
Nisbet, wife of the Earl of Elgin, the British ambassador to
Constantinople, and Aspasia, the mistress of Perikles, the most powerful
man in Athens during that city’s Golden Age.
At the height of the
Napoleonic Wars, the twenty-one-year-old, newly wed Countess of Elgin, a
Scottish heiress and celebrated beauty, enchanted the power brokers of
the Ottoman Empire, using her charms to obtain their permission for her
husband’s audacious plan to deconstruct the Parthenon and bring its
magnificent sculptures to England. Two millennia earlier, Aspasia, a
female philosopher and courtesan, and a central figure in Athenian life,
plied her wits, allure, and influence with equal determination,
standing with Perikles at the center of vehement opposition to his
vision of building the most exquisite monuments the world had ever seen.
Rich in romance and intrigue, greed and glory, Stealing Athena
is an enthralling work of historical fiction and a window into the
intimate lives of some of history’s most influential and fascinating
women.
130
Trade Paperback (large)
Good Condition
Thursday, November 1, 2012
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