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Mary Robinson was the first mistress of George IV. ; She was also the woman who was hailed as the "English Sappho', painted by Reynolds and Gainsborough, and employed as an actress by Sheridan. In her, showmanship and reckless behaviour contrasted with Romantic sensibility and radical thinking. Her fortunes see-sawed throughout her life.

She was familiar with the most fashionable London venues and, following her marriage to the profligate Thomas Robinson, with the squalor of a debtor's prison. In the first full biography for many years, Hester Davenport draws on previously unpublished material to paint a fascinating portrait of this intriguing woman.

A celebrated actress in her youth, Mary caught the eye of George Prince of Wales during a performance of The Winter's Tale. Her role in the play became her nickname during their affair - the gossip sheets were full of scandal about 'The Perdita'. In her most notorious move, Mary blackmailed the prince for 5,000 pounds when he ended the affair. Yet, as Hester Davenport shows, Mary was not the scheming minx depicted in history but a woman who faced life with a fighting spirit.

Three years after her affair with the prince, at the age of twenty-six, she became partially paralysed. Enforced inactivity and the need for money led her to pursue, with success, a literary career. Her poetry was patronised by Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and admired by Coleridge. When she was abandoned by her last lover, the military hero Banastre Tarleton, she took revenge by writing two scathing novels.

From her glittering triumphs in high society - when Marie Antoinette herself asked to meet the beautiful Mrs Robinson - to her days of struggle for health, wealth and affection, Mary's compelling story will appeal to all those interested in royalty, the theatre and the social world of the Georgian era.

Hardcover; 274pp with index