Scandalous Socialites
Natalie Livingstone, Claudia Renton
Chair: Anne Sebba
Natalie Livingstone’s captivating The Mistresses of Cliveden and Claudia Renton’s Those Wild Wyndhamsprovide two fascinating chronicles of the ways in which exceptional women challenged, evaded and exploited the expectations of their times. Anne Sebba facilitates this exploration of sex and power, passion and romance, dramatic lives and tragic devastation.
Natalie Livingstone was born and raised in London. She graduated with a first class degree in history from Christ's College, Cambridge in 1998. She began her career as a feature writer at the Daily Express and now contributes to Tatler, Harper's Bazaar, US Vogue, Elle, The Times and The Mail on Sunday.
Natalie lives in London with her husband and three children.
Image c. Mary McCartney
Claudia Renton read History at Cambridge and is a practising barrister, who has also enjoyed a career as an actress, appearing with the RSC and at the National Theatre. She is co-author of Heroes with Simon Sebag Montefiore and Dan Jones.
Anne Sebba: award winning biographer, historian and author of eleven books. Her latest book is Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy published in the UK and US in 2021.
In 2016 Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940’s was the winner of the 2016 Franco-British Society book prize. Previously Anne wrote That Woman, a biography of Wallis Simpson and the scandal of the 1936 abdication crisis based on her discovery of a secret cache of letters.
A former Reuters Foreign Correspondent, Anne is a broadcaster and regularly appears on television talking about her books. She is a former chair of Britain's 10,000 strong Society of Authors and lecturer who gives talks to a variety of audiences in the US and UK as well as on cruises and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research.
