From Arrowhead Classics Publishing Company
Over 100,000 copies sold since 1995. In its 5th printing. 6" x 9", Softcover.

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The Diary of Lillie Langtry A few years ago Donna Lee Harper came to us with her manuscript she had titled Lillie Langtry's Diary. Ms. Lee explained that she'd dug into Lillie Langtry's life and learned a great deal about what she referred to as a strong and great lady. It turned out than Lillie Langtry had traveled extensively and met some rather unique and classic American Characters including Bat Masterson, General Burnside, The Moon sisters and others of such fame. We suggested to Ms. Lee that we title the book The Diary of Lillie Langtry and thus it is. Ms. Lee confessed that she took the research and wrote the stories more in a "novelists" vein than a historians. We suggested that was okay, so had Michener and many others including the recent hit book, "John Adams." Foreword From "The Diary of Lillie Langtry I like Lillie Langtry. I never met the lady — she preceded me by almost one hundred years — but after reading bout her, I feel like I know her. And I like her. Not only because she was beautiful and talented, which she certainly was, but most of all because she was bright. Extremely so. And ahead of her times by almost a century. Lillie (not Lily, which she did not like), was a child of the Victorian era, no question about that. But she was also a major player in the battle for women's rights, a struggle that was in the its earliest stages in her days. Born Emily Charlotte Le Breton at St. Helier on the Channel Island of Jersey on October 13, 1853, Lillie was a beauty from infancy. So much so that while she was just into her teens an army officer proposed marriage to her, only to be rebuffed because she was so young. Lillie was awe struck by London when taken there by her mother on her first trip to that city and vowed to return only after she was familiar with the social graces she was so lacking at the time. She not only returned to London a few years later — as the young bride of Edward Langtry — but took the city by storm. Her overwhelming beauty soon had every artist and photographer in the city clamoring to have her pose for them. She became the darling of London high society and was on the guest list for every important party in town. She soon caught the eye of Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, and began a relationship with the future kink of England that was to endure for years. Edward Langtry, never one for the society whirl, soon withdrew more and more into the background, and Lillie's marriage quickly faded into estrangement. But Edward stubbornly refused to give Lillie a divorce and was not even aware that she gave birth to a daughter that some gossips said was sired by the Pr5ince himself. One friend suggested she become an artist, another thought she should become a landscape architect. But it took her best friend, Oscar Wilde, to guide Lillie into a career which was to make her famous — the theater. She never became an accomplished actress and she knew it. But the crowds came, oh, how they came. It seems everyone wanted to get an in-person glimpse of the now famous "Jersey Lily." She packed them in no matter where she played and even though the critics were oftentimes less than complimentary, her audiences nevertheless loved her. And it didn't hurt to have the once and future king, Edward (and oftentimes his wife Alexandra), in their private box, cheering Lillie on. Lillie didn't rest on her laurels. She went to Paris and studied under the best acting teacher she could find. But better yet, she was smart enough to form her own company, thus insuring that the majority of the immense profits she was bringing in would go into her bank account and not into that of some unscrupulous promoter. Her fame had preceded her to America when she went on her first cross-country tour of the U.S. in 1882, She stayed for five years, and knocked them dead from New York to San Francisco and every city and hamlet in between. By now she was traveling in her own specially built railroad car, the seventy-five foot "Lalee," which had every comfort, including a private bedroom for Lillie, a kitchen, maid's quarters, rooms for her staff and a cozy living room complete with piano. Lillie not only conquered American audiences, she bought up part of the country as she traveled. A ranch in California -it still exists today as the Langtry Ranch but under a different owner -land in Chicago and a home in New York were just part of her numerous acquisitions. She was friends with people who today we just read about in the history books -Presidents U. S. Grant and Teddy Roosevelt; Winston Churchill; Rudyard Kipling; George Bernard Shaw; Sarah Bernhardt; Mark Twain; Diamond Jim Brady; P. T. Barnum; the list is endless. Somerset Maugham, who met her on board ship when she was in her sixties, said that when he first approached her from behind he thought she was a woman no older than thirty. Lillie would have been right at home with today's health fanatics. She jogged two miles every morning, ate only healthy food and had an exquisite figure on her tall five- foot-eight frame. Lillie was wealthy enough in the 1890s to buy her own theater in London. She was also sending monthly checks to her estranged husband, Edward, who had become an alcoholic. After he died, Lillie married Sir Hugo Gerald de Bathe in 1899 and thereafter possessed the one thing in life that had so far eluded her -a title She continued to use the name Mrs. Langtry profession- ally, but she was now Lady de Bathe in private life. She made five lengthy tours of the U.S. over a period of thirty- five years, and even made a motion picture in New York on her last trip. She owned one of the largest racing stables in England, bred horses in the U.S. and won several important stakes races in Europe. And she was not above winning some big wagers at the same time. Lillie retired from the stage while in her sixties and moved to Monaco where she spent her remaining years tending her garden and going to parties in Monte Carlo. She died at the age of seventy-six on February 12, 1929, and was buried at the place of her birth on the Isle of Jersey. She lived a storybook life. She was quite a lady. — Frank J. Stevens Sedona, Arizona, 1995

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