Born in 1786, by the time she was fifteen Harriette was well on her way to becoming England's most sought-after courtesan. She counted amongst her conquests the Prince of Wales, at least three Prime Ministers and the Lord Chancellor. There was hardly a young dandy in Mayfair who had not been involved with Harriette, who entranced men with her wit as much as her beauty. A fascinated Walter Scott called her 'a smart saucy girl' with 'the manners of a wild schoolboy'.
But when the Duke of Argyll and other rich former lovers refused to pay her an annuity, Harriette decided to avenge herself on the whole pack. With her scandalous Memoirs - a book she was famously told, by the Duke of Wellington, to 'publish and be damned' - she took sensational revenge on London society.
In a biography of tremendous style and energy, Frances Wilson makes use of previously unseen letters, law reports and confidential Government correspondence to reveal for the first time the spectacular true story of the sexual celebrity who blackmailed the British aristocracy and held even the king to ransom.