Download or read book The Courtesan s Keeper written by Kshemendra and published by Prhi. This book was released on 2014-02-12 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Kshemendra s finest satires, The Courtesan's Keeper is a delightful and rambunctious rendition of the life and times of the courtesan Kankali as she teaches the ways of the world to her ward Kalavati. From the attractive courtesan and her shrewd keeper, to the experienced barber and the avaricious trader, the book brings to life the vibrant society of Kashmir Valley a thousand years ago through a host of characters, each drawn in vivid detail.
Download or read book The Courtesan s Keeper written by Kshemendra and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2014-02-15 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This feast of smiles was put together giving the secret strategies and all the tricks of courtesans One of Kshemendra’s finest satires, The Courtesan’s Keeper is a delightful and rambunctious rendition of the life and times of the courtesan Kankali as she teaches the ways of the world to her ward Kalavati. From the attractive courtesan and her shrewd keeper to the experienced barber and the avaricious trader, the book brings to life the vibrant society of Kashmir Valley a thousand years ago through a host of characters, each drawn in vivid detail. With its terse narrative, directness and economy of style, and fast-paced action, the book is fully suited for the twenty-first-century reader.
Download or read book Courtesan s Keeper written by A. N. D. Haskar and published by India Penguin Classics. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Kshemendra s finest satires, The Courtesan's Keeper is a delightful and rambunctious rendition of the life and times of the courtesan Kankali as she teaches the ways of the world to her ward Kalavati. From the attractive courtesan and her shrewd keeper, to the experienced barber and the avaricious trader, the book brings to life the vibrant society of Kashmir Valley a thousand years ago through a host of characters, each drawn in vivid detail.
Download or read book The Nightless City written by Joseph Ernest De Becker and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Courtesans at Table written by Laura McClure and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witty nicknames, crude jokes, public nudity and lavish monuments, all of these things distinguished Greek courtesans from respectable citizen women in ancient Greece. Although prostitutes appear as early as archaic Greek lyric poetry, our fullest accounts come from the late second century CE. Drawing on Book 13 of the Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae--which contains almost all known references to hetaeras from all periods of Greek literature--Laura K. McClure has created a window onto the ways ancient Greeks perceived the courtesan and the role of the courtesan in Greek life.
Download or read book The Poison Keeper written by Deborah Swift and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-12 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enthralling historical novel of Renaissance Italy Naples 1633 Aqua Tofana - One drop to heal. Three drops to kill. Giulia Tofana longs for more responsibility in her mother's apothecary business, but Mamma has always been secretive and refuses to tell her the hidden keys to her success. But the day Mamma is arrested for the poisoning of the powerful Duke de Verdi, Giulia is shocked to uncover the darker side of her trade. Giulia must run for her life, and escapes to Naples, under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, to the home of her Aunt Isabetta, a famous courtesan. But when Giulia hears that her mother has been executed, and the cruel manner of her death, she swears she will wreak revenge on the Duke de Verdi. The trouble is, Naples is in the grip of Domenico, the Duke's brother, who controls the city with the 'Camorra', the mafia. Worse, her Aunt Isabetta, under his thrall, insists that she should be consort to him. Based on the legendary life of Giulia Tofana, this is a story of hidden family secrets, and how courage and love can overcome vengeance. 'Her characters are so real they linger in the mind long after the book is back on the shelf' Historical Novel Society
Download or read book Charming Cadavers written by Liz Wilson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly original study of sexuality, desire, the body, and women, Liz Wilson investigates first-millennium Buddhist notions of spirituality. She argues that despite the marginal role women played in monastic life, they occupied a very conspicuous place in Buddhist hagiographic literature. In narratives used for the edification of Buddhist monks, women's bodies in decay (diseased, dying, and after death) served as a central object for meditation, inspiring spiritual growth through sexual abstention and repulsion in the immediate world. Taking up a set of universal concerns connected with the representation of women, Wilson displays the pervasiveness of androcentrism in Buddhist literature and practice. She also makes persuasive use of recent historical work on the religious lives of women in medieval Christianity, finding common ground in the role of miraculous afflictions. This lively and readable study brings provocative new tools and insights to the study of women in religious life.
Download or read book Lives of the Courtesans written by Lynne Lawner and published by Rizzoli International Publications. This book was released on 1987 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Queen of the Courtesans written by Barbara White and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-06-02 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fanny Murray was an incomparable Georgian beauty and the most desired courtesan of the 1750s. The daughter of an impoverished musician from Bath, she took London society by storm, not only as the most prized 'purchaseable beauty' of her day, but also as a fashion icon and muse to poets, writers and artists. She counted princes, aristocrats and politicians among her friends and lovers, but relished the company of rogues, fraudsters and ne'er-do-wells. Barbara White presents evidence to suggest that Fanny Murray participated spiritedly in the sexual antics of the notorious 'Monks of Medmenham', the most infamous of the Hell-fire Clubs. After she retired from prostitution, Fanny Murray reinvented herself, entering a pragmatic marriage with the Scottish actor David Ross. Surprisingly, her virtues as a devoted and faithful wife became almost proverbial. Even so, Murray could not escape her disreputable past. In 1763, a scurrilous poem dedicated to her caused a national scandal that ended in the infamous trial of the radical politician John Wilkes for obscene libel. Barbara White's portrait of Fanny Murray takes readers from the brothels of Covent Garden to sex romps at Medmenham Abbey, from refined drawing rooms in London to marital respectability in Edinburgh. This is an illuminating contribution to the scholarly understanding and popular appreciation of a complex and intriguing period of British history. Fanny Murray's triumph – against almost insuperable odds – is a remarkable story, as rich in the telling as it is enthralling.
Download or read book In the Company of the Courtesan written by Sarah Dunant and published by Random House. This book was released on 2006-04-11 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor’s army blew a hole in the wall of God’s eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment. Thus begins In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant’s epic novel of life in Renaissance Italy. Escaping the sack of Rome in 1527, with their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiammetta and her dwarf companion, Bucino, head for Venice, the shimmering city born out of water to become a miracle of east-west trade: rich and rancid, pious and profitable, beautiful and squalid. With a mix of courage and cunning they infiltrate Venetian society. Together they make the perfect partnership: the sharp-tongued, sharp-witted dwarf, and his vibrant mistress, trained from birth to charm, entertain, and satisfy men who have the money to support her. Yet as their fortunes rise, this perfect partnership comes under threat, from the searing passion of a lover who wants more than his allotted nights to the attentions of an admiring Turk in search of human novelties for his sultan’s court. But Fiammetta and Bucino’s greatest challenge comes from a young crippled woman, a blind healer who insinuates herself into their lives and hearts with devastating consequences for them all. A story of desire and deception, sin and religion, loyalty and friendship, In the Company of the Courtesan paints a portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities at its most potent moment in history: It is a picture that remains vivid long after the final page.
Download or read book Shakespeare Among the Courtesans written by Duncan Salkeld and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Courtesans - women who achieve wealth, status, or power through sexual transgression - have played both a central and contradictory role in literature: they have been admired, celebrated, feared, and vilified. This study of the courtesan in Renaissance English drama focuses not only on the moral ambivalence of these women, but with special attention to Anglo-Italian relations, illuminates little known aspects of their lives. It traces the courtesan from a wry comedic character in the plays of Terence and Plautus to its literary exhaustion in the seventeenth-century dramatic works of Dekker, Marston, Webster, Middleton, Shirley and Brome. The author focuses especially on the presentation of the courtesan in the sixteenth century - dramas by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Lyly view the courtesan as a symbol of social disease and decay, transforming classical conventions into English prejudices. Renaissance Anglo-Italian cultural and sexual relations are also investigated through comparisons of travel narratives, original source materials, and analysis of Aretino's representations of celebrated Italian courtesans. Amid these fascinating tales of aspiration, desire and despair lingers the intriguing question of who was the 'dark lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets.
Download or read book The Nightless City written by J. E. de Becker and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-11-22 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unsurpassed study from 100 years ago ventured into Tokyo's red-light district to survey geisha and courtesan life and offer meticulous descriptions of training, dress, social hierarchy, and erotic practices. 49 black-and-white illustrations; 2 maps.
Download or read book What a Courtesan Wants written by Victoria Vale and published by Victoria Vale. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lady Lucinda Bowery has decided to cast off mourning attire and begin moving on from the loss of her husband. Hiring the gentleman courtesan known as an experienced dominant seems like just the thing to propel her out of bereavement and back to life. She intends for him to give her pleasure, and perhaps help her find a bit of the woman she was before being widowed. Aubrey Drake became a courtesan to help bolster his expanding business, as well as provide a trousseau and dowry for his ward. Over time he has grown bored catering to women who only see him as an exotic offering to be enjoyed temporarily and then discarded. Thus, the thrill of mastering a submissive bedmate has lost its luster, leaving him cold. When Lady Bowery is suggested as his new keeper, he expects to be as apathetic toward her as all the others. But, when sparks fly at their first meeting, Aubrey becomes determined to master Lucinda in every way possible—even though she seems intent on keeping him at arm’s length. As she finds comfort and pleasure with her new courtesan, Lucinda finds it increasingly difficult to deny that what she feels for him goes beyond simple lust. Yet, embracing the possibility of a future with him means letting go of her past. Aubrey is determined to win Lucinda’s heart, but she still clings to the memory of her first husband. Can Lucinda come to return Aubrey’s love before it’s too late?
Download or read book The Accidental Courtesan written by Cheryl Ann Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this School for Brides romance, a respectable lady must play the part of a seasoned lover in a turnabout game of seduction and irresistible intrigue… The School for Brides stands on its principles: turn comely courtesans into proper wives. But when Lady Noelle Seymour attempts to save a bride-in-training from arrest by sneaking into a stranger’s bedroom to return a stolen necklace, she locks eyes with Gavin Blackwell and gets herself into a whole heap of trouble. Since the truth of her nocturnal visit could land both women in jail, Noelle offers a desperate excuse: She’s there as his new courtesan. Gavin has a lot to learn about London society, but a female housebreaker offering her seductive services is beyond the unexpected. When she vanishes, Gavin tracks her down and demands she make good on her proposition. However, there’s more at stake than Noelle’s virtue. That unfortunate night in Gavin’s room has made her an unwitting pawn in the treacherous game of a woman scorned, and now only Gavin can protect her—in every way he desires...
Download or read book The Courtesan s Arts written by Martha Feldman and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2006-03-23 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Courtesans, hetaeras, tawaif-s, ji-s--these women have exchanged artistic graces, elevated conversation, and sexual favors with male patrons throughout history and around the world. In Ming dynasty China and early modern Italy, exchange was made through poetry, speech, and music; in pre-colonial India through magic, music, chemistry, and other arts. Yet like the art of courtesanry itself, those arts have often thrived outside present-day canons and modes of transmission, and have mostly vanished without trace.The Courtesan's Arts delves into this hidden legacy, while touching on its equivocal relationship to geisha. At once interdisciplinary, empirical, and theoretical, the book is the first to ask how arts have figured in the survival or demise of courtesan cultures by juxtaposing research from different fields. Among cases studied by writers on classics, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and various histories of art, music, literature, and political culture are Ming dynasty China, twentieth-century Korea, Edo and modern Japan, ancient Greece, early modern Italy, and India, past and present. Refusing a universal model, the authors nevertheless share a perception that courtesans hover in the crevices of space, time, and practice--between gifts and money, courts and cities, subtlety and flamboyance, feminine allure and masculine power, as wifely surrogates but keepers of culture. What most binds them to their arts in our post-industrialized world of global services and commodities, they find, is courtesans' fragility, as their cultures, once vital to civilizations founded in leisure and pleasure, are now largely forgotten, transforming courtesans into national icons or historical curiosities, or reducing them to prostitution.
Download or read book The Deipnosophists Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus written by Athenaeus and published by . This book was released on 1854 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Suleiman Charitra written by Kalyana Malla and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2015-02-06 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Hindu poet, Kalyana Malla, renders in classical Sanskrit a biblical story for his Muslim patron, a Lodhi prince of the sixteenth century, in this unusual intermingling of cultural traditions. The sensual unfolding of David and Bathsheba’s love story-the bathing scene, David’s infatuation, his pursuit of Bathsheba, and their eventual union-is strikingly portrayed in the language of the gods through its shringara rasa, or the erotic mode, by a writer better known for the sex manual Ananga Ranga. This marvellous, first-ever English translation of Suleiman Charitra-a delightful Sanskrit rendering of Hebraic and Arabic tales-elegantly brings together the east and the west.