WEBVTT - Teaching People Manners 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Noble Blood, A production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:11.400 and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener Discretion advised. Catherine Mansfield 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:15.760 was a prolific writer and critic, packing a great deal 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.240 of work into her short life. Before her death at 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.960 age thirty four in nineteen twenty three, she had written 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.920 dozens of short stories and poems, as well as over 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:32.320 one hundred pieces of literary criticism. A contemporary and close 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:36.599 friend of Virginia Wolf, Mansfield is widely considered to be 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.240 one of the greatest short story writers of the early 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:45.879 twentieth century, and still one of her most intriguing pieces 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.600 of writing came in the form of a very brief, 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:54.760 very simple letter. Here it is in its entirety, sent 0:00:55.000 --> 0:01:00.840 in March of nineteen twenty one. Dear Princess Bibesca, I'm 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.600 afraid you must stop writing these little love letters to 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.920 my husband while he and I live together. It is 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.920 one of the things which is not done in our world. 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.920 You are very young, won't you ask your husband to 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.480 explain to you the impossibility of such a situation. Please 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:21.839 do not make me have to write to you again. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.559 I do not like scolding people, and I simply hate 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:32.399 having to teach them manners. Yours, sincerely, Catherine Mansfield. It's 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.000 hard to imagine any work of fiction or book review 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.160 coming close to that in terms of sparking interest in 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:44.560 so few sentences. It's so perfectly eloquent and mean in 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.320 equal measure. I do not like scolding people, and I 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.840 simply hate having to teach them manners perfect It sounds 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.320 like something from a lost Noel Coward play or a 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.840 Miranda Priestly speech that ended up on a cutting room floor, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.120 But equally intriguing, at least in my mind, is the 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:09.400 recipient a princess. It's hard to imagine a royal being 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:14.560 the recipient of such elevated and eloquent shade. And so 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.360 who was Princess Elizabeth Bibesco and how did she find 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:24.120 herself on the wrong side of the early twentieth century literati. 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:32.160 I'm Danish Schwartz, and this is noble blood. The story 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.680 of Princess Elizabeth Bibesco is not so much a rags 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:40.320 to riches story, but rather a privilege to more privilege story. 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:45.000 Her father was h. H Asquith, a man who was 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.960 from more humble beginnings but who rose through the ranks 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.639 of Parliament to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.959 when Elizabeth was eleven years old. Life as the Prime 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:01.919 Minister's daughter thrust her into the spotlight, and Elizabeth quickly 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.480 grew to love it that way. Her keen intelligence and 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.919 social grace made quite an impression on the adults around her, 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.560 and she was fearless in leveraging her position for the 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.120 greater good as well as for a little extra attention 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.200 of her own. When she was twelve years old, Elizabeth 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:25.680 enlisted playwright George Bernard Shaw to write a play for 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:31.080 a charity benefit, which she herself directed. By her teenage years, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:36.120 her charm and philanthropy were topics of discussion in national newspapers. 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:41.560 During World War One, a teenage Elizabeth wrote and performed 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.200 in live shows for the troops. She also organized fundraisers 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.920 to help out with relief efforts. She even acted in 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:55.000 two silent War movies directed by D. W. Griffith. If 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.080 she were alive today, she would probably be characterized correctly 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:04.440 as a NEPO baby it girl. Elizabeth quickly became known 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:09.400 among London high society as a spirited young multi hyphenate 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:14.400 who as we'd soon see inherited her family's talent for 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:21.320 social climbing. Antoine Bibesco was a Romanian prince and diplomat who, 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:25.480 by nineteen eighteen had found himself part of the social 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.880 circle that included Elizabeth's father, Lord Asquith. At the time, 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.120 he was forty years old and in a serious relationship, 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.720 but when he met the dazzling twenty one year old 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:44.720 daughter of the then former Prime Minister, Bibesco's attentions shifted entirely. 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:50.400 Elizabeth's mother, Margot Asquith, was thrilled by the match. She 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:55.400 saw in Antoine the kind of continental sophistication her own 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.680 family lacked, with breeding that far exceeded those from her 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.479 own family. She also hoped he would have a calming 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.360 effect on her daughter, who'd already packed a lot of 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:13.200 life into her twenty one years. Elizabeth and Antoine were 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.800 married on April twenty ninth, nineteen nineteen, witnessed by a 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:23.320 who's who of British royalty and culture. Everyone from Queen 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:29.000 Mary to Elizabeth's old collaborator George Bernard Shaw was in attendance. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.279 It was a union that would catapult Elizabeth from the 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:38.800 daughter of a politician into actual European royalty and all 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:43.200 the glamour that came with it. The newlyweds settled into 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:48.200 life in Paris, taking up residence in the Bibesco family townhouse. 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.600 It was here that Elizabeth would give birth to their 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:56.279 only child, a girl named Priscilla, in nineteen twenty. It 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.599 was also the place where she would be initiated into 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:04.440 a world world far more sophisticated than even her privileged 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:09.680 upbringing had prepared her for. The Bibescoe family moved in 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:16.800 rarefied circles, their Parisian salon, drawing the most celebrated artists 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:21.479 and writers of the era. At its center was Antoine's mother, 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:27.520 Helene Bibesco, renowned hostess and patron, who turned their home 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:32.480 into a gathering place for the intellectual elite. Among the 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:37.000 regular visitors was none other than Marcel Proust, who had 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:41.520 formed a close friendship with Antoine long before Elizabeth had 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:46.200 even entered the picture. Preust became utterly enchanted by the 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:52.200 new Princess Bibesco, declaring her to be quote probably unsurpassed 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.839 in intelligence by any of her contemporaries. He was also 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:01.239 taken by her physical beauty, comparing her to a figure 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:06.200 in an Italian Fresco. The author, a discerning recluse who 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:10.520 rarely ventured from his home, would make late night visits 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:15.920 to the Babesco townhouse, discussing literature with Elizabeth and gossiping 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:20.560 with Antoine. Elizabeth had clearly found her footing in this 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.960 world of letters and high society, but not to everyone 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:29.080 in the literary world was quite so taken with the 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:34.760 vivacious young princess. While she'd mastered the art of captivating 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:39.040 influential men, she had also begun to make some rather 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:46.360 powerful enemies of their wives. To understand what would compel 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.080 someone to write the scathing letter I read in this 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.320 episode's introduction, Let's take a look at the woman behind 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.720 the pen. By nineteen twenty one, the New Zealand author 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:03.360 Catherine Mansfield had established herself as a strong voice in 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:09.440 modern literature, dealing with topics like existentialism, sexuality, and her 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:14.280 relationship to Christianity. She moved to London at age nineteen 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.640 and found herself in the orbit of the Bloomsbury Group. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:22.800 Virginia Wolf became a close personal friend, and, like her 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:28.200 more famous author friend Catherine's personal life was decidedly unconventional. 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:33.800 She had romantic relationships with both men and women. Like 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.600 many of her age, she struggled with her attraction for women. 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.559 By the time her path crossed with Princess Babesco's. Katherine 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.480 Mansfield was married to a man, J. M. Murray, a 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:51.640 literary editor and critic. Their relationship had been rocky from 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.560 the start they met in nineteen eleven, and by the 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:59.520 time they finally married in nineteen eighteen, they had gone 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:05.079 through a string of breakups and reconciliations, with both Katherine 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:10.199 and Murray pursuing other lovers during their times apart. They 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.520 were the early twentieth century equivalent of that toxic couple 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.960 who couldn't seem to quit each other, as much as 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.760 their friends might have wanted them to. There was also 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:26.880 a third member of their relationship, Catherine's failing health. In 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:32.600 nineteen seventeen, she had been given a diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis, 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:37.720 and by late nineteen twenty the disease was steadily claiming 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.319 more of her strength and mobility. She spent long stretches 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:47.360 away from London seeking treatment in warmer climates, while Murray 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:52.120 remained at home, ostensibly focused on his job as editor 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:57.640 of a literary magazine called The Athenaeum. Katherine, isolated by 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:04.000 illness and sometimes geography, remained emotionally dependent on Murray, even 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:08.600 as she knew he was incapable of fidelity. Her letters 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.440 to him revealed that she clung to an idealized version 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:17.840 of him even as evidence mounted against her faith. Because 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:22.040 even though Murray stayed behind for work, he also found 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:28.200 plenty of time for extracurricular activities. That's where Princess Bibesco 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:34.760 comes in. During this period, Elizabeth Bibesco's own writing career 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.200 was on the rise. She was eager to be recognized 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.920 as a serious literary figure in her own right, a 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:46.640 drive that started with those preteen stage productions and only 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:51.240 grew stronger over time. This led her directly to J. M. 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.880 Murray's orbit when she began submitting stories to The Athenaeum. 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:01.720 What started as a professional relationship quickly became something far 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:08.360 more personal. It's worth noting that infidelity wasn't exactly foreign 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:13.600 territory for the Bibesco marriage either. Prince Antoine had already 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:18.120 earned himself quite a reputation around London as what the 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:25.360 writer and critic Rebecca West memorably called a boudoir athlete. West, 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.880 who had her own brief affair with the prince in 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:32.160 nineteen twenty seven, recalled looking around the room at a 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:37.400 French embassy party and realizing that every woman present had 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.920 been Antoine's mistress at one time or another. No doubt, 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:47.200 Elizabeth Bibesco felt entitled to some romantic adventuring of her own. 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.959 But for Catherine Mansfield, watching from her sick bed in 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:56.320 the South of France, the betrayals were becoming impossible to 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:01.280 ignore or forgive. The situation reached a breaking point in 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:06.520 December nineteen twenty when Catherine's doctors insisted that for her 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.840 health she stopped the exhausting work of writing reviews for 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:16.400 her husband's literary magazine. Left with nothing really to distract her, 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:22.440 Catherine's attention turned to Murray's affairs, particularly the one with 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:28.480 Elizabeth Bibesco. Catherine was forced to confront the humiliating reality 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.800 that her husband, in this case, was conducting something much 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:37.800 worse than merely a physical affair. The Princess was positioning 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:43.119 herself as a literary partner, asking for advice and guidance 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.200 in ways that must have felt like a direct attack 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:53.160 on Catherine's own professional relationship with her husband. The final 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:58.400 straw came in early nineteen twenty one, when Catherine intercepted 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.960 one of Elizabeth's letters to Murray, a breathless plea begging 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:08.040 him to quote resist Catherine and reminding him that you 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:12.080 swore nothing on earth should ever come between us. The 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:16.120 letter revealed not just the depth of the affair, but 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:20.760 Elizabeth Bibesco's apparent belief that she was engaged in some 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:25.839 kind of romantic rescue mission saving Murray from his invalid wife. 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:32.760 Catherine's response was swift, devastating, and deserved. Let's hear it again, 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:38.480 shall we? It is just almost too good, Dear Princess Bibesco. 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.319 I'm afraid you must stop writing these little love letters 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.480 to my husband while he and I live together. It 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.160 is one of the things which is not done in 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.079 our world. You are very young, won't you ask your 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.400 husband to explain to you the impossibility of such a situation. 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.760 Please do not make me have to write to you again. 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.440 I do not like scolding people, and I simply hate 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:09.840 having to teach them manners your sincerely, Katherine Mansfield. Only 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:14.120 a truly gifted writer could have crafted something so glacially 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:19.280 polite that's also filled with verily contained fury. Clearly, the 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.240 Missive was designed to put the passionate young Princess in 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:27.360 her place, but Catherine wasn't finished. She followed up with 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.040 a second, longer response that revealed even more about the 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:36.160 state of mind and her philosophy about love, arts, and authenticity. 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:42.280 The aftermath of those letters sent ripples through London's literary circles. 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.960 Virginia Wolf, always one to enjoy a good bit of gossip, 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.960 wrote about what she called the Bibesco scandal, with which 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:57.480 London so they say rings. She described dinners where a 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:02.520 miserable Murray poured out heart, insisting that his affair with 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:06.360 Elizabeth meant nothing to him, all the while declaring his 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:12.920 absolute devotion to Catherine. Mansfield meanwhile described the Princess to 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:17.040 William Gerardi, an up and coming novelist, as quote a 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:22.120 most dreadful young person, very very emotional. It's really a 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.640 shame we didn't have reality television back then, because this 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.680 friend group was churning out vander pump Rule's levels of 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:35.680 drama For Catherine, the confrontation represented something larger than just 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.520 marital strife. Her isolation and suffering due to her chronic 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:45.400 condition helped to realize what was most important to her writing. 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:50.760 Perhaps her husband's affair with Elizabeth Bibesco wasn't just a 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.720 betrayal to their marriage, but a threat to her entire 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:59.720 literary world. Maybe she found the brazenness of the Princess 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.440 just to be a bit of a bridge too far. 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.880 Maybe she was repelled by the passion of someone boldly 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.040 declaring what they wanted with no thought given to the 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:14.280 feelings of others. Or maybe she simply didn't care for 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:20.800 Elizabeth Babesco's writing. Regardless of her exact reasons, Katherine Mansfield 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:26.160 gathered the accumulated fury of her life's misfortunes and aimed 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.680 straight for the Princess. The fact that we have the 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.800 letter at all suggests that she made a copy and 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.000 possibly shared it with a close friend or two. I 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:41.240 can certainly understand that, after all, who hasn't sent a 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:47.440 friend screenshots of a particularly juicy text conversation, especially when 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:54.040 someone is so articulate and so in the right. For 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:58.280 Katherine mansfield life post letter was spent in search of 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.760 a Hail Mary miracle cure for her tuberculosis. Her final 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:08.080 years became a pilgrimage through alternative therapies and spiritual remedies, 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.520 each one promising what the last had failed to deliver. 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:16.040 This quest ultimately led her to the Institute for the 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:20.879 Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau, France. This was the 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:26.639 most outlandish place she'd tried yet, a transcendental commune of 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:30.920 sorts under the guru like leadership of a man named 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:37.119 George Gurjeff, a mystic, spiritual teacher and choreographer. If that 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.200 sounds like a cult, well you're not wrong. Her days 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.800 were full of hard labor, with little food and little sleep, 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:51.800 but Catherine was convinced she had found something transformative. Sadly 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.280 she was right, though not in the way she had hoped. 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:00.600 Catherine died of a pulmonary hemorrhage just three months after 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:06.480 arriving at the Institute, sparking an immediate controversy about whether 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:11.960 the Institute's extreme regimen had accelerated her death. She was 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:17.159 just thirty four years old, in a final indignity that 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:22.480 somehow seems fitting for her turbulent relationship, her husband J. M. 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:27.520 Murray forgot to pay her funeral expenses. This resulted in 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.879 Catherine being buried in a pauper's grave before the oversight 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.119 was corrected and her remains could be moved to a 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:39.240 more suitable resting place. Her death left Murray with the 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:43.720 considerable task of editing and publishing the mountain of work 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:49.040 she left behind, including two volumes of short stories, a novel, 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:54.679 a collection of poems, and more. In death, Catherine's voice 0:18:54.720 --> 0:19:00.480 would reach far more readers than it ever had in life. Meanwhile, 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:05.000 Elizabeth Bibesco was continuing to build a literary career of 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:09.040 her own. In nineteen twenty one, she published her first 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:14.280 collection of short stories, entitled I Have only Myself to Blame. 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:20.240 The Princess drew inspiration from the glittering Parisian society she 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.880 now called home, capturing what one critic would later call 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:31.199 the quote buoyant charm, nonchalant wit, and sparkling decor of 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:36.399 a rarefied world. Though others would find her writing superficial, 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:41.679 all glamour and no depth, she was a prolific writer, 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:46.879 publishing novels, plays, short story collections and more. Over the 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:52.320 course of the next two decades, her work garnered international attention, 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.840 and she even had a novel serialized in The Washington Post. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:02.119 Yet despite her productivity a lie, Elizabeth found herself perpetually 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:07.880 dismissed by the literary establishment. The tensions that had erupted 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:13.720 over the Mansfield Murray affair crystallized a broader cultural divide 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:20.040 between the Bloomsbury intellectuals with their serious modernist sensibilities, and 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:26.400 Elizabeth's more fashionable, continental approach to both life and marriages 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:31.960 and literature. In the nineteen thirties, the Princess reached out 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:36.160 to Virginia wolf for support while putting together an anti 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:41.359 fascist exhibition in London, HARKing back to her teenage tenure 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.760 as a wartime organizer. Elizabeth drew from her well of 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:50.840 celebrity contacts, but Virginia Wolfe was no George Bernard Shaw. 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:58.480 Wolf was suspicious of Elizabeth's politics, particularly around feminism, or 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.640 she called it the woman in question. After a brief 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:06.640 terse exchange, Wolfe made it clear that in her view, 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:11.680 the Princess remained as shallow and politically naive as ever, 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.920 there's no denying Elizabeth Bibesco made enemies during her life, 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:22.360 but her writing deserves to be evaluated on its own terms. 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.480 Her work serves as a snapshot of a specific time 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:32.640 in history, a breathy, deceptively sincere counterpoint to the Bloomsbury 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:38.560 Group's existentialism. Years later, the English writer Elizabeth Bowen would 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:42.840 write a more generous assessment of Bibesco's writing than many 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:48.159 of her contemporaries. She noted that Elizabeth Bibesco's characters quote 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:52.600 seemed to be the inhabitants of a special millieu in 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:56.679 which the more ordinary taboos of feeling and breaks on 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:02.199 speech do not operate end quote. Elizabeth wrote of privileged 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.560 people with big feelings, people who came through the First 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:10.680 World War utterly changed and unsure where they fit in. 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:16.000 Those who survived became obsessed with the minutia of everyday life, 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:21.639 taking nothing for granted. Her characters followed their hearts just 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:24.920 as she had in real life, with all the fallout 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.760 that came along with it. In the end, perhaps the 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.920 real tragedy isn't that Elizabeth Bubesco was dismissed by her 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:37.000 more serious literary contemporaries, but that she was born into 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:41.000 the wrong era. Entirely in our current age of social 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:45.600 media and personal branding. Her instinct for self promotion and 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:49.280 her talent for turning life into art might have made 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:54.480 her a sensation. Instead, she found herself caught between two worlds. 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:58.040 A princess who wanted to be taken seriously as an 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:03.560 artist in an age that solemn intellectualism. A girl called 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:07.479 out and ostracized for an affair in a circle where 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:12.320 it was nearly the norm. Catherine Mansfield no doubt got 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:16.480 the last word in their famous exchange, but hopefully history 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:20.560 has softened a bit on Princess Bibesco, a woman whose 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:24.520 greatest crime may have been saying the quiet part out loud. 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:30.679 That's the story of Princess Elizabeth Bibesco, But keep listening 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:33.719 after a brief sponsor break for a bit more of 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:46.200 the Princess's glamorous life. Throughout her literary career, Elizabeth Bibesco 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:51.520 maintained a second job as ambassador's wife. She remained married 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:55.439 to Antoine Bibesco, despite his affairs and hers for the 0:23:55.600 --> 0:23:59.199 entirety of her life, and the Bibescoes moved around with 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:04.240 Antoine's work work, first to Washington, d C and later Madrid. 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:08.399 When World War II began, the family returned to Romania, 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:12.560 where Elizabeth would spend her final years. She died in 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:16.199 nineteen forty five at just forty eight years old, and 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:20.439 was buried in the Bibesco family graveyard. Her grave is 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:24.120 inscribed with the last line of one of her collections 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:28.359 of poetry, My soul has gained the freedom of the night. 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:32.760 It's the perfect inscription and one last reminder to her 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:38.240 lifelong commitment to main character energy. Perhaps the most telling 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:43.159 detail about Princesses Bibesco's life comes from her obituary in 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:47.480 The New York Times. Quote, she narrowly escaped death in 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:50.760 nineteen twenty eight when an airplane in which she was 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:54.720 making a tour of Near East relief work crashed on 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:59.440 a rocky beach in Greece. The plane somersaulted three times, 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:04.960 ching passengers over a cliff into the sea. End quote. This, 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:08.240 to me is one of the most compelling arguments for 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:12.800 a more empathetic reframe of the Princess's life. She wasn't 0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:19.520 just an architect of chaos. Sometimes the drama sought her out. 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:28.480 Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and 0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:32.119 Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:37.560 Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannaswick, 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:41.879 Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is 0:25:42.040 --> 0:25:47.360 edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima Ill 0:25:47.520 --> 0:25:52.520 Kaali and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. 0:25:53.040 --> 0:25:58.680 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:25:58.920 --> 0:26:00.960 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.