A Literary Courtesan

If scandal had a patron saint in Regency England, it was undoubtedly Harriette Wilson; courtesan, Regency London's most unapologetic memoirist, and queen of the pointed comeback. Born Harriette Dubouchet on 2 February 1786 at 2 Carrington Street, Shepherd Market, Mayfair, she was one of fifteen children in a lively household that included four sisters who, like Harriette, would abandon needlepoint for notoriety. Yes, fifteen children living above a clock shop. Presumably, quiet dinners were not a family tradition.

Four of the Dubouchet daughters went on to careers in what was euphemistically called "the oldest profession." But make no mistake - these were not your average street-corner dames. They were witty, well-connected, and absolutely shameless in all the best ways. Harriette’s sister Amy was the first to leap into the world of affairs with wealthy men, apparently inspired by Don Quixote, if Don Quixote had traded windmills for wealthy suitors and a penchant for short-sighted pedants like Mr. Trench.

In Regency society, where marriage was more transaction than romance and social mobility for women was severely limited, becoming a courtesan was often one of the few viable "career choices" for impoverished but attractive young women - especially those with any connection, however tangential, to titled or fashionable society.

Her 'first':

A well-placed mistress could enjoy luxury, education, and influence, albeit at the mercy of her patron's favour. For many, it was not just a survival strategy but a calculated social manoeuvre. For women like Harriette Wilson, it was also a stepping stone to power - one silk-sheeted tryst at a time.

Harriette’s initiation into high society came early. At just 15, she became the mistress of William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven, a man with a title and a willingness to fund her taste in pearls and pointed wit. Over time, she built a glittering and strategic career, entering into formal arrangements with a veritable directory of the rich and titled.

Harriette Wilson, reputed beauty and no fool!

Our future literary star began her illustrious career at the tender age of fifteen. Her agreement with Craven was the first of many such “arrangements,” with lovers including the likes of the Duke of Wellington (he of Napoleonic fame) and various lords, viscounts, and political VIPs who all thought they could keep her quiet with a few banknotes and broken promises.

Spoiler alert: they could not.

In a delightful turn of karmic comeuppance, Harriette turned to the pen when those gentlemen failed to fund her retirement. Her memoirs, published in 1825 with the opening line “I shall not say how and why I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven,” sent tremors through London’s elite. If a book launch could cause a collective aristocratic nosebleed, this was it.

Perhaps the most iconic moment in her publishing saga came when she warned the Duke of Wellington she intended to include him. His famously dismissive reply? "Publish and be damned." (Spoiler #2: She did. And he was.) After all, war hero or not, the duke was married.

Harriette’s writing combined gossip, grit, and a healthy dose of self-deprecating sass. Her tale was one of wit over woe, written not as an apology, but as an indictment of the high society men who benefitted from women like her, then discarded them when their usefulness faded.

Rejecting the Regent:

While our lady didn’t quite snag the Prince of Wales, she did famously snub him via letter, declining to travel 52 miles through “bad weather” just to ogle his royal highness’s standard-issue limbs. As she put it, unless he could demonstrate he was "better than any man who may be ready to attend my bidding," he could jog on.

Her romantic resume reads like a parliamentary roll call, but her relationships weren’t just pillow talk - they were political. Through her lovers, she had a front-row seat to the hypocrisy and excesses of Regency leadership. With elegance and venom, she showed the world what happened behind velvet curtains.

Today, Harriette Wilson remains one of the most captivating figures of her era - not because she scandalised society, but because she refused to be silenced by it. A woman ahead of her time, she understood the power of storytelling long before “revenge memoir” became a publishing trend.

Want to stay anonymous? Pay up.

Becoming a courtesan was not merely a romantic rebellion, it was a career choice. It offered financial stability, social access, and sometimes, if one played her cards right, a path into respectability. Courtesans had their own hierarchy, and Harriette quickly rose to the top.

But for all her lovers, Harriette’s gravest miscalculation was romantic: believing she was valued beyond the bedroom. She imagined herself a companion, a confidante - only to discover time and again that her connections were transactional. The Duke of Lorne moved smoothly from Harriette to her sister Amy. The one man she truly loved, Lord John Ponsonby, dumped her before taking up with her 14-year-old sister Fanny. Ouch.

At least three, possibly five, of Harriette’s sisters joined the family business. Only Sophia reached the elusive endgame of aristocratic marriage, becoming Lady Berwick at 17. Like other courtesans, Harriette relied on her lovers’ promises to support her after the liaisons ended. Spoiler: they didn’t. She was hardly alone. The Prince of Wales’s long-term mistress died a pauper despite a royal promise of £20,000.

As debts loomed and reputations waned, Harriette deployed her secret weapon: the pen. Known for her flirtatious letters, she redirected her literary skills into something darker and far more effective. “Having no other power or public voice, the betrayed woman reaches for her pen,” she wrote. Her memoirs were not just tell-alls; they were weapons of blackmail.

The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Written by Herself (1825):

The reaction to her calls for money was mixed. Some paid. Others (like Wellington) chose to weather the storm. Meanwhile, King George IV was said to be desperate to keep Harriette’s quill away from the affairs of his mistress, Lady Conyngham.

She didn’t even need to ask the Regency twice. The rest of the memoir did its work - names, scandals, unpaid debts, and all. Wilson’s memoirs shook the foundation of polite society. B

eyond revenge, her writing exposed the transactional hypocrisies of the aristocracy, while slyly asserting the intellectual force and resilience of a woman who had been underestimated her entire life.

She never married a lord. She never retired in comfort. But Harriette Wilson did something arguably better: she got the last word.