A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby (2012) is the biography of Jane Digby, the Lady Ellenborough, a 19th century British aristocrat whose romantic life led to extensive travel across Europe and the Orient. It spans from her birth in 1807 to her first marriage in 1824 in England at the age of seventeen to her first scandal – her divorce – at the age of twenty-three, and to her death in Damascus, Syria, in 1881 at the age of 74.
Her lovers and husbands included a British cabinet minister, a German baron, an Austrian prince, a Greek count, the King of Bavaria, an Albanian general, and a Bedouin nobleman.
Using Jane Elizabeth Digby’s diaries written in faded pencil, French, Arabic, and even in code, as well as her notebooks, poems, sketches, coupled with newspaper articles and her family’s archives, the author details the scandalous life of a women rarely out of the tabloid news.
Digby’s poems are revealing, using poetry ‘as a sort of psychiatric couch.’ Her suitors did the same. Therefore, there is a delightful amount of poetry in this biography.
Having six children didn’t stop her from travelling wherever and whenever she chose to, with whomever. It was difficult to keep track of their lives during her exciting episodes and travels to Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and Albania.
I enjoyed the brief sections of her life in Paris, and her collection of crinolines and fashionable clothes. But I especially enjoyed her later years in Syria (chapters 12-25), when she finally found the love of her life, a Bedouin nobleman, Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab, twenty years younger than her. They married in 1853, when she was forty-six, and lived together for 28 years until her death in Damascus in 1881. He died in 1904.
The descriptions of Damascus, Palmyra, and Aleppo in the 19th century are amazing—especially as Damascus was one of my favourite places to visit in the early 2000s before the Iraq war. Jane Digby says the camel trek from Damascus to Palmyra was ‘the greatest adventure, probably, of all my journeys.’ She also journeyed for eight weeks from Damascus in Syria, to Baghdad in Iraq, and another eight weeks for the arduous return visit before becoming interested in Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab. She describes fleas, a violent storm, and the lack of food, but also the wonderful site of ancient Babylon, and the ‘simple joy of a long smooth canter on the camels as they stretched their necks towards an oasis.’
Her life as a Bedouin wife held many rewards for Jane and are a fascinating description of the traditions and customs of the times, spending months at a time in a Bedouin tent and the other months in a luxurious home in the city of Damascus with a gorgeous garden. It ‘came to be regarded as one of the most remarkable houses in Damascus … Here at last she believed she had found and created her spiritual home.’ She calls it the happiest period of her life. Her interests were many: archaeology, horse-riding, learning languages, and her fondness for animals—turtle doves, falcons, greyhounds, goats, antelopes, and cranes.
Historically, this biography provides information of Syria’s development in desert politics, conflicts, the passing explorers and visitors, and the evolving and changing times in a land rich in traditions. But moreso, it is a remarkable account of the unique life of Jane Digby el Mezrab as a Damascene gentlewoman.
MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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