Courtesans, hetaeras, tawaif-s, ji-s--these women have exchanged artistic graces, elevated conversation, and sexual favors with male patrons throughout history and around the world. In Ming dynasty China and early modern Italy, exchange was made through poetry, speech, and music; in pre-colonial India through magic, music, chemistry, and other arts. Yet like the art of courtesanry itself, those arts have often thrived outside present-day canons and modes of transmission, and have mostly vanished without trace.The Courtesan's Arts delves into this hidden legacy, while touching on its equivocal relationship to geisha. At once interdisciplinary, empirical, and theoretical, the book is the first to ask how arts have figured in the survival or demise of courtesan cultures by juxtaposing research from different fields. Among cases studied by writers on classics, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and various histories of art, music, literature, and political culture are Ming dynasty China, twentieth-century Korea, Edo and modern Japan, ancient Greece, early modern Italy, and India, past and present. Refusing a universal model, the authors nevertheless share a perception that courtesans hover in the crevices of space, time, and practice--between gifts and money, courts and cities, subtlety and flamboyance, feminine allure and masculine power, as wifely surrogates but keepers of culture. What most binds them to their arts in our post-industrialized world of global services and commodities, they find, is courtesans' fragility, as their cultures, once vital to civilizations founded in leisure and pleasure, are now largely forgotten, transforming courtesans into national icons or historical curiosities, or reducing them to prostitution.

TO RESTORE HER REPUTATION, SHE MUST FIRST DESTROY IT... When Dianthe Lovejoy is accused of murdering a courtesan who bears an uncanny resemblance to her, she must go into hiding. And the only man who can protect her is her enemy–notorious rake and gambler Lord Geoffrey Morgan.

Francesca Felizzi, former mistress of the Duke of Ferrara, is now an aspiring courtesan. Astonishingly beautiful and ambitious, she revels in the power she wields over men. But when she is visited by an inexperienced young man, it becomes horribly clear to Francesca that despite her many admiring patrons, she has never truly been loved. Suddenly, her glittering and sumptuous life becomes a gaudy façade. And then another unexpected encounter brings with it devastating implications that plunge Francesca and her two young daughters into the sort of danger she has dreaded ever since she began to work the streets all those years ago.

If Lady Amelia Caversham is to marry before another Season passes, she'd better find help-namely, that of the infamous courtesan-turned matchmaker Sophia Dalby. But even Amelia is shocked when Lady Dalby informs her that they will hold interview for the position. And most shocking of all? Only Dukes need apply.

An unrequited love who is in possession of her family?s pearls leaves Lady Louisa Kirkland no choice. She must call on Lady Sophia, an ex-courtesan cleverer than all the other ton matrons combined.

Harriette Wilson was the most desired and the most dangerous woman in Regency London. This highly acclaimed biography reveals for the first time the true story behind her sensational life and scandalous 'Memoirs'. When her former lovers - including much of the British aristocracy - turned against her, she knew exactly how to take revenge . . . 'A wonderful book. Much more than a biography of one attractive, witty woman, it offers a deft analysis of how Britain dealt with celebrity, sex, power and popular journalism in an age that bears remarkable similarities to our own . . . Frances Wilson is not only a first-rate scholar but also a wonderful storyteller who manages to get inside her namesake's famously creamy skin and tell her story with wit and understanding.' Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday 'Lively and stylish . . . Reveals how dangerous the courtesan who operated at the heart of the political world was thought to be.' Anne Sebba, Spectator 'Harriette's story is deftly and stylishly told. It beats most novels with its rich ingredients.' Frances Spalding, Daily Mail

Maude Whitlock is consigned to a life of servitude in Barbados after the death of her mother, a notorious courtesan. As she plans her escape to London, a chance encounter awakens hope for a different life. Henry Crane, gentleman spy, wealthy widower, handsome charmer, places his mission above all other concerns—until he meets Maude, a frazzled chaperone at his niece's engagement ball. Cross purposes will soon put an ocean between them. She refuses to follow her mother's path into the oldest profession, and he is duty bound to see his mission through. How will they find a path to the future before circumstances pull them apart?

New York Times bestselling author Julia London is at her best in this sensual Regency where a Duke must pretend his mistress is his wife. Kate Bergeron is the beautiful and mysterious former mistress of a cloth merchant...and the latest beauty to capture the interest of the Prince of Wales. Mired in a disastrous divorce, the Prince attempts to distract attention from his next amorous pursuit by ordering Grayson Christopher, the eligible Duke of Darlington, to pretend to London society that he is having an affair with Kate. When Grayson reluctantly agrees to his Prince's demand, he finds the lady no more willing than he is. Kate will grudgingly act the part in public, but her favors are not for sale to any man. As Grayson and Kate mimic ardor for the world to see, they find what started as a deception becoming all too real. And when passion flames into love, their predicament becomes extreme. For while marriage between a duke and a courtesan could never happen, Kate knows in her heart that she is willing to accept nothing less...

The Courtesan's Courtship When Dianthe Lovejoy is accused of murdering a courtesan who bears an uncanny resemblance to her, she goes into hiding. The only man who can protect her is her enemy — notorious rake Lord Geoffrey Morgan. Owing a debt of honour to her relative, Lord Geoffrey reluctantly takes in the meddlesome miss. But when he learns of her plan to masquerade as a courtesan to unmask the villain, he vows to put a stop to the ridiculous scheme. Thinking that training Dianthe in the courtesan arts will scare her off, Geoffrey discovers that he's met his match. Especially when Dianthe practices her newly acquired wiles on him... A Wild Justice For despite Lady Annica Sayles's determination to remain a spinster — the better to avenge wronged women, the better to guard her heart — her passionate response to Tristan Sinclair, the elusive Earl of Auberville, swept her into a web of intrigue and desire beyond her wildest imaginings! What he got was an independent woman with secrets of her own. But Annica Sayles, this most unsuitable of brides, suited him exactly, for she shared his thirst for justice and stirred his deepest needs!