Sarah Dunant

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Michigan

Set in Renaissance Italy, this follow-up to Dunant's "The Birth of Venus" recounts the fantastic escapades of Bucino Teodoldo, a wily dwarf, and his mistress, celebrated courtesan Fiammetta Bianchini, who escape to Venice where intrigue awaits.

In the Company of the Courtesan

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Jeannie Lin

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Ohio

Concubine servant Yue-ying and aristocratic playboy Bai Huang throw off the shackles of their society's social structure as their love for one another grows. Original.

The Lotus Palace

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#historicalfiction #courtesan #curry #paperback 

Illinois

A Heartbreaking Historical Epic of Loss, Loyalty and Love

From rural China to the heart of imperial Europe - a heartbreaking historical epic of loss, loyalty and one Great Love.

The Courtesan

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#luxe #largeprint #amytan #shanghai #courtesan #paperback 

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Missouri

Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement is a sweeping, evocative epic of two women’s intertwined fates and their search for identity, that moves from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese village.

Spanning more than forty years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement resurrects pivotal episodes in history: from the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty, to the rise of the Republic, the explosive growth of lucrative foreign trade and anti-foreign sentiment, to the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreign “Shanghailanders” living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II.

A deeply evocative narrative about the profound connections between mothers and daughters, The Valley of Amazement returns readers to the compelling territory of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. With her characteristic insight and humor, she conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and stubbornness of love.

The Valley of Amazement Large Print

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Honore De Balzac

Rayner Heppenstall

North Carolina

Finance, fashionable society, and the intrigues of the underworld and the police system form the heart of this powerful novel, which introduces the satanic genius Vautrin, one of the greatest villains in world literature. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A Harlot High and Low

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Catherine Hewitt

Massachusetts

The 19th-Century Courtesan Who Built an Empire on a Secret

Catherine Hewitt's The Mistress of Paris is a fantastically readable biography of a nineteenth-century Parisian courtesan who harbored an incredible secret.

"A gorgeous, smart, ambitious, hard-working, steely autodidact and businesswoman whose product was herself, Valtesse would be totally at home in our self-branding society." --The New York Times Book Review

Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne was painted by Ã%douard Manet and inspired Ã%mile Zola, who immortalized her in his scandalous novel Nana. Her rumored affairs with Napoleon III and the future King Edward VII kept gossip columns full. But her glamorous existence hid a dark secret: she was no comtesse.

Valtesse was born into abject poverty, raised on a squalid backstreet among the dregs of Parisian society. Yet she transformed herself into an enchantress who possessed a small fortune, three mansions, fabulous carriages, and art the envy of connoisseurs across Europe. A consummate show-woman, she ensured that her life--and even her death--remained shrouded in just enough mystery to keep her audience hungry for more.

Spectacularly evoking the sights and sounds of mid- to late nineteenth-century Paris in all its hedonistic glory, Catherine Hewitt's biography tells, for the first time ever in English, the forgotten story of a remarkable woman who, though her roots were lowly, never stopped aiming high.

The Mistress of Paris

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Jay Lake

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Oregon

Acclaimed author Jay Lake has created a remarkable character inGreen, and evokes a remarkable world in this novel. Green and her struggle to survive and find her own past will live in the reader's mind a long time after the book is closed.

Her exquisite beauty and brilliant mind were not enough to free her from captivity. That took her skills with a knife, plus the power of a goddess.

She was born in poverty, in a dusty village under the equatorial sun. She does not remember her mother, she does not remember her own name--her earliest clear memory is of the day her father sold her to the tall pale man. In the Court of the Pomegranate Tree, where she was taught the ways of a courtesan...and the skills of an assassin...she was named Emerald, the precious jewel of the Undying Duke's collection of beauties. She calls herself Green.

The world she inhabits is one of political power and magic, where Gods meddle in the affairs of mortals. At the center of it is the immortal Duke's city of Copper Downs, which controls all the trade on the Storm Sea. Green has made many enemies, and some secret friends, and she has become a very dangerous woman indeed.

Green

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Eden Bradley

Rhode Island

A Novel

Valentine Day, a high-class call girl in love with her work and protege of a wealthy Italian filmmaker, is a true renaissance woman who caters to only the most powerful of men, but when a drink at the opera with an unforgettable stranger turns into more than innocent flirtation, she is forced to question her so-called perfect life. Original.

A 21st Century Courtesan

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Cora Pearl

The Memoirs of Cora Pearl

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Some wear to DJ including missing pieces, but has been covered with a plastic DJ to retain shape. Interior in great condition, but note some staining and pencil marks (pictured)

California

Three Novelettes Translated from Chinese

Widow, Nun, & Courtesan

A timeless novel of one woman who bridged two worlds in a tumultuous era of East meets West The Courtesan ?is an astonishing tale inspired by the real life of a woman who?lived and loved in the extraordinary twilight decades of the Qing dynasty. To this day, Sai Jinhua is a legend in her native land of China, and this is her story,?told the way it might have been. The year is 1881. Seven-year-old Jinhua is left an orphan, alone and unprotected after her mandarin father's summary execution for the crime of speaking the truth. For seven silver coins, she is sold to a brothel-keeper and subjected to the worst of human nature. Will the private ritual that is her father's legacy and the wise friendship of the crippled brothel maid be enough to sustain her?? When an elegant but troubled scholar takes Jinhua as his concubine, she enters the close world of his jealous first wife. Yet it is Jinhua who accompanies him--as Emissary to the foreign devil nations of Prussia, Austro-Hungary, and Russia--on an exotic journey to Vienna. As he struggles to play his part in China's early, blundering diplomatic engagement with the western world, Jinhua's eyes and heart are opened to the irresistible possibilities of a place that is mesmerizing and strange, where?she will struggle against the constraints of tradition and her husband's authority and seek to find "Great Love." Sai Jinhua is an altered woman when she returns to a changed and changing China, where a dangerous?clash of cultures pits East against West. The moment arrives when Jinhua's western sympathies will threaten not only her own survival, but the survival of those who are most dear to her.? A book that shines a small light on the large history of China's relationship with the West,? The Courtesan? is a novel that distills, with the economy of a poem, a woman's journey of untold miles to discern what is real and abiding.? #China #Chinese #courtesan 

Tennessee

a novel

"The year is 1881. Seven-year-old Jinhua is left an orphan, alone and unprotected after her mandarin father's summary execution for the crime of speaking the truth. For seven silver coins, she is sold to a brothel-keeper and subjected to the worst of human nature. Will the private ritual that is her father's legacy and the wise friendship of the crippled brothel maid be enough to sustain her? When an elegant but troubled scholar takes Jinhua as his concubine, she enters the close world of his jealous first wife. Yet it is Jinhua who accompanies him--as Emissary to the foreign devil nations of Prussia, Austro-Hungary, and Russia--on an exotic journey to Vienna"--Amazon.com.

Save this search

Sarah Dunant

In the Company of the Courtesan

Jeannie Lin

The Lotus Palace

Alexandra Curry

The Courtesan

Amy Tan

The Valley of Amazement Large Print

Honore De Balzac; Rayner Heppenstall

A Harlot High and Low

Catherine Hewitt

The Mistress of Paris

Jay Lake

Green

Eden Bradley

A 21st Century Courtesan

Cora Pearl

The Memoirs of Cora Pearl

Lin Yutabg

Widow, Nun, & Courtesan

Alexandra Gambrill Curry

The Courtesan

Amy Tan

The Valley of Amazement

Browse by categories

Save this search

Sarah Dunant

In the Company of the Courtesan

Jeannie Lin

The Lotus Palace

Alexandra Curry

The Courtesan

Amy Tan

The Valley of Amazement Large Print

Honore De Balzac; Rayner Heppenstall

A Harlot High and Low

Catherine Hewitt

The Mistress of Paris

Jay Lake

Green

Eden Bradley

A 21st Century Courtesan

Cora Pearl

The Memoirs of Cora Pearl

Lin Yutabg

Widow, Nun, & Courtesan

Alexandra Gambrill Curry

The Courtesan

Amy Tan

The Valley of Amazement