IMPROPER PURSUITS: The Scandalous Life of an Earlier Lady Diana Spencer

Anyone looking for a frothy read won't find it here; though there is scandal in the life of Lady Diana Spencer Bolingbroke Beauclerk, Hicks buries it in a flood of historical detail. The first Diana Spencer (1735–1808) served as a Lady of the Bedchamber in the court of George III until she got pregnant during an adulterous affair. Even more scandalous, her oldest Bolingbroke son left his wife after embarking on an incestuous affair with her oldest Beauclerk daughter; the couple had three children and escaped to Paris. But there was a more serious, substantive side to Lady Di's life. Her second husband ran with an artistic crowd that included James Boswell, Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds; she herself was a glamorous painter who did design work for Josiah Wedgwood and endeared herself to Horace Walpole, whose unrequited love for her made him her greatest champion. It's great raw material, but Hicks, who teaches art history at Cambridge University, gives equal weight to all her facts, and so her narrative falters. Readers must slog through minutiae about 18th-century painting supplies and obstetrical practices, condoms (they were made of linen and came in three different sizes) and rouge ingredients. The resulting book is likely to weary anybody but serious history buffs. 8 pages of b&w and 8 pages of color photos not seen by PW. (June 10)