The Harp Lesson

Set in the years around the French Revolution, Emma Tennant’s atmospheric and poignant new novel explores the life of Pamela Sims, a woman who would become known in history as La Belle Pamela. At a young age Pamela is taken from her humble home in England to the French court, where she is brought up in a life of luxury as the illegitimate daughter of the beautiful Madame de Genlis and the Duc d'Orleans. Recounted through the voices of Pamela and her daughter, this novel vividly tells how her past shaped their extraordinary lives, capturing the atmosphere of eighteenth-century France and the complexity of a world where your origins create your identity.