Beautiful For Ever - Tapa dura

Madame Rachel had everything: a Mayfair address, the title of purveyor to Her Majesty the Queen, and a catalogue of exotic creams and potions. Her clientele were aristocratic, rich, and most importantly, gullible. They came in their droves to her shop in New Bond Street, lured by the promise of eternal beauty, but what they found there was something far darker - a con-woman and fraudster who made a career out of lies, treachery, and the false hopes of her victims. Beautiful for Ever is the true story of a woman who found both fame and infamy peddling products which claimed almost magical powers of restoration and preservation. From the mysterious origins of the woman known as Madame Rachel, through the teeming markets, filthy prisons and high society drawing rooms of Victorian London, it has all the elements of a thrillingly scandalous tale - blackmail, fraud, and high-profile trials; stolen names and false promises; love affairs, suicide and bankruptcy. And at the centre of it all, Madame Rachel. From the author of the critically acclaimed Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs, Beautiful For Ever is about an extraordinary woman who preyed upon the eternal quest of her sex to be beautiful - no matter what the cost.

Helen Rappaport read Russian Special Studies at Leeds University and was an actress in TV and films before moving into publishing. She worked as a freelance editor for academic publishers such as Blackwell and OUP, becoming a full time writer in 1998 and specializing in Victorian social history and the Russian Revolution. Helen is the author of No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War (Aurum Press 2007), Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs (Hutchinson 2008), Conspirator: Lenin in Exile (Hutchinson 2009). She is currently working on a book about the death of Prince Albert for publication in 2011, the 150th anniversary of his death. Helen lives in Oxford. You can visit her website at www.helenrappaport.com