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READING E-BOOKS for MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT : MISSY SPEAKS

READING E-BOOKS for MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT

Hello Readers!

In December 2016 I finally decided to try reading by e-book. Basically, I've always been a book lover - a book worm - and one who uses libraries, goes to books sales and bookstores and book fairs. I always seems to have two or three books to read at a time. For this blog I like to read at least one well regarded book before choosing my subject matter such as the Mistress of the Month but sometimes I read books that I reject or two or three or four. I also read magazine articles and news on line, including some old archived articles. Then I'm ready to make a decision and take a position.

I've learned over the last few months that there are some true positives for reading by e-book. One is saving me time, though I still do visit my library and read paper. I check to see if a book I want to read is available as an e-book and sometimes after a chapter or so I decide the books isn't appealing and that saves me borrowing or buying it. Another is that I can use the search in Overdrive (my app) to scan the book before I read it to see if there is much reference to the person or subject that I want to learn about. For instance, more than one mistress featured at MISTRESS MANIFESTO has so been in the shadows that you might have to read a few books to find a mention of her name. I know I can count on the book being mine to read for 21 days reading an e - sometimes renewable several times - before I can take notes. I still take notes by hand - sometimes hundreds of pages. I go back to the bookmarked pages when I'm taking notes to see if I still feel the information on those pages is relevant.

Of course books are the work of writers - authors - and really when I reference a book that's more than a year or two old it's like revaluing the work. I look at this blog as a way to introduce my readers to many of these talented, skilled, ambitious, and determined people who have managed to produce an entire manuscript, market it, get agents, get PR, and then - some of them - do that again. As I understand it, the initial push to market a book is when they make it or break it financially.

If there is a mistress you know about that you think would make a good subject, please leave a comment. Any books you'd recommend? That too!

As part of the Google Blogger there are stats. I look at these once in a while and see that many people are reading MISTRESS MANIFESTO on their cell phone. Although some of the most popular posts have "legs of their own" and so take dominance when you use the Internet to find the blog or information about someone of interest to you, I encourage you to seek a bit further, read another month, use the archives to see who else might interest you, because truly, many hours are put into each and every subject!

Thank You For Stopping By! 

Missy

WHAT MISTRESS OF THE MONTH ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS BLOG?

I know that the more hits a subject or post gets, the higher up in the ranking, and sometimes that just isn't fair because I spend a lot of time researching for newer subjects and posts too.

I wonder.  WHICH MISTRESS ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS BLOG?

Missy

OTHER BOOKS AUTHORED BY LADY ANNABEL GOLDSMITH (SHE LOVED DOGS!)

 

In this book Lady Annabel Goldsmith wrote about her childhood and growing up in a rich family, and her parents ; her father a liberal Member of Parliament who raised her after her mother died young of cancer. She married Mark Birley at the age of twenty, and had three children by him. She writes about her children, her affair with Sir James Goldsmith, but most of all some of the fascinating people who were part of her social life. You can see by the title that these people were welcomed into her home and friendship. Pelham cottage was the place she lived until she and Sir James Goldsmith finally got married and she moved.

I remember reading Annabel's memoir and she clearly loved dogs. She wrote this book about one of them.

This book is a lot of fun, as Annabel recounts Copper's adventures on the aristocratic social scene as well as the London buses, and well, you know that, like most dog owners, there had to be some premonitions about what this particular dog was up to ...

She contributed to this book, all about the life and death of best friends. Dogs were important to Annabel and her family and her garden at Ormeley Lodge has memorials to some of them. 

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LADY ANNABEL VANE-TEMPEST-STEWART BIRLEY GOLDSMITH : MOTHER OF SIX GREAT CHILDREN : POSH AND WITH PURPOSE : ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS BRITISH ARISTOCRATIC MISTRESSES OF CONTEMPORARY TIMES

Back in the day, when I first thought about writing about Mistresses, I was inspired by a few women, one I met, who became a little famous or infamous due to her relationship with a celebrity, another I would never : Lady Annabel Goldsmith. I recall mentioning Lady Annabel's book to some other women who had not read it back then. They, disapprovingly, said, in so many words, "Oh I know all about that kind of woman." They thought that Lady Annabel was an especially bad woman because her high social standing made her an example. Well, certainly her situation was unlike the average American woman who wants a divorce rather than to stay married. Money was involved in her personal decisions, of course, and there was plenty, but some people do stick together for the children to be raised and have a compromise. 

In November of 2009 I elected Annabel as Mistress of the Month, but as time went by I thought I hadn't said enough about her and her book, so I thought to read it again and devote another month to her. That was my plan when I learned that Annabel had died last fall at the age of 91. What a full life she had! Then began my unsuccessful search for a library copy of the book. Eventually I found a copy on Internet Archive, but this month, I'm going to rely on various sources of information to present one of the most famous contemporary British mistresses ever. 

"I'm an incredible mother, rather a good mistress,

 but not a very good wife." - Lady Annabel

LADY ANNABEL (VANE-TEMPEST-STEWART) BIRLEY GOLDSMITH

1934 - 2025

Lady Annabel Goldsmith was born Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, a member of the high British aristocracy. Her mother, Romaine Combe, died when she was a child and her father raised her. When her grandfather died and her father assumed the title of Marquess of Londonderry, she was then 15 years old and became a Lady. Her adult life started out quite predictably and conservatively for her time and social position. She was a beautiful debutant in the and presented to society and to the young Queen Elizabeth. After that debut she accepted the marriage proposal of Mark Birley. When she married him in 1954, she was just 19 years old. Birley, an artistic man, founded a famously posh and private club in London named after her, Annabel's. He made that esteemed club, which exists to this day, his life's work. He womanized, reportedly, and had the opportunity to as the club's ever-present owner. Annabel had three children by her husband and was a stay-at-home mother devoted to raising them. Eventually she met the financier Sir James Goldsmith. That's when Annabel found herself in an alternative lifestyle.

In 1964 or so, she became the Mistress of financier Sir James Goldsmith. She had her first child by Goldsmith while still married to Birley. Eventually, in 1978, she and Goldsmith married. Whatever understanding or compromise Annabel had with these men, the relationship was known to their peers.

Lady Annabel became the mother of Rupert, Robin, and India Jane with her first husband Mark Birley. With Sir James Goldsmith she became the mother of Jemima, Zac, and Ben. All of her children have made it into the pages of Vanity Fair magazine - as well as other media - for their activism, politics, and personal lives. Her children by Goldsmith especially seem to have the family trait of wanting to make the world a better place. Her children by both men are all fascinating people. (Every once in a while I look to see what they are up to, Jemima Goldsmith Khan especially.) Annabel became the grandmother of fourteen.

She wrote her memoir "Annabel: an Unconventional Life" as well as other books of a less serious nature. According to a London Daily Telegraph review of this book, there wasn't a lot of emotion expressed in the telling. But then, I liked that because she was straightforward and without apology. ***

Known for her mothering, which extended to her daughter's friend, Princess Diana (Lady Diana Spencer) when Diana married Prince Charles and divorced, having been a friend of Diana's mother, Frances, too, Lady Annabel was also known as someone who could make a house a home. She was known for entertaining her friends there. She was also known for her love of dogs, a family trait, and her beautiful gardens.

What may be less known is her involvement with causes, her activism and philanthropy, which proves she was not just posh but had purpose in life. This began while a young wife and mother when in 1956, she and husband Mark Birley volunteered in Vienna with 'Save the Children' to help Hungarian Revolution refugees who escaped Hungary and Communist take-over of that country.

Her causes included 'Dogs Trust' and 'Battersea Dogs and Cats Home'. She supported' World Animal Protection' in ending bear farming in South Korea. Her concern for the environment included donating to 'Countryside Alliance,' protecting rural country life, and the 'Soil Association.'  Of course her love of dogs and gardening tied in with these organizations.

Further, Lady Annabel became involved in British politics, in particular the anti-European Union' Democracy Movement' which she launched in 1999 with hopes of educating the British public about the European Union before the elections.

This month we'll celebrate Lady Annabel for her intelligence and sophistication, and for all the love she gave.

*** A version of this post was originally posted November 5 2009 in the very beginnings of this blog, Mistress Manifesto. 

*** Information on Lady Annabel's volunteer work and philanthropy is from Google AI.

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BEFORE WE BEGIN THIS NEW YEAR

 

This blue butterfly became a certain woman's chosen symbol of transformation!

JANUARY 2026'S POSTS WILL BEGIN TOMORROW 

WISHING YOU A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY : AND HOW TO CHOOSE A DOG BY THE DOG WHISPERER ! FREE PET ADOPTIONS TO CELEBRATE THE PAWLIDAYZ

ZAPPOS and BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY TEAM UP : DOG FOR FREE PLUS 

SAVE A LIFE AND ENHANCE YOURS

You know that in all the years that I've been blogging at Mistress Manifesto, I've almost never advertised a product. I even avoid posting videos that have ads on them. So I really searched for the opportunities that I'm posting this month. Here is an opportunity to adopt a dog for free. Now, be sure that you want a dog - the blessings and opportunities but also the responsibilities - and have wisely chosen one that will fit in with your life - your space!

BEST FRIENDS ORG : ADOPT A CAT OR DOG : NO KILL SHELTER

EXCERPT: In 2024 alone, 425,000 cats and dogs were killed in this country’s shelters, including here in your community, simply because they didn’t have a safe place to call home.

We know millions of households will add a pet to their family this year and if just 1 in 17 more of those families chose to adopt a pet from a shelter, we could reach no-kill in your community and nationwide.

So when you adopt from a Best Friends location, a network partner or one of the many shelters and rescue groups around the country, you’re not only adding a loyal and loving companion to your family, you’re helping to save lives.

PURE BRED ? : ADOPTING A DOG IS A DECISION TO MAKE WISELY

AMERICAN KENNEL CLUB GUIDE TO DOG BREEDS 

Dogs do have needs and there are expenses.  If I could do it over, the one thing I would do is buy doggie health insurance.  When I got my dog she was almost five years old and I knew near nothing about her past. Later I found out she had likely been allowed to breed or perhaps bred in a backyard.  Breeders sometimes stop when a dog is about five years old.

I soon learned she was terrified to have an accident in the house... i.e. housetrained.  However she was never taught any commands such as sit and stay. She also did not know what to do with toys and didn't play with them.

I had no idea if she'd ever had vaccinations or medical care. I didn't know that I could get health insurance for her, starting with her adoption from a local shelter where they had groomed her, cleaned her teeth, and otherwise given her a thumbs up when it came to her health...So, a dog does not have to be a puppy in order to get health insurance for it. 

Missy

MY ARCHIVES HOLD THE SECRETS OF SO VERY MANY MISTRESSES!

If you want a fast way to learn who has been elected to the Mistress of the Month Pantheon here - and sometimes Mantress of the Month or Honorary Mistress of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto, go to PAGES and choose GUIDE!  - Missy

HAVING A MERRY DOGGY CHRISTMAS : IT'S NATIONAL MUTT DAY!

It's Holiday Season, the end of another year, and what I want to do is relax. And when I think of relaxation, I think of my dog. 

She is no longer with us, but my every day with her was a better day because of her. 

I remember a day that was so intense, I had a splitting headache.  

I started thinking about her as I sat in traffic. How I had to get home to feed her - How she would be there to greet me - The way she played - Her pretty face - How much I loved her -; The headache evaporated, just went right away, along with my bad mood.

Not everyone can own a dog. If you rent it can be difficult to find a dog-friendly apartment. But I want to suggest to you that if you do love dogs, you volunteer to foster one, and see how that goes. Many cities now offer fostering programs or adoption without having to put the animal in a shelter, as shelters can be traumatizing. You can save a dog's life by giving it some time away from the shelter.  

And, well, having a dog is beyond loving it and caring for it and it doing the same for you. There's responsibilities and money involved. It needs medical care, good food and treats, baths and grooming, but there is also lots of reward. Having a dog, having to walk it, is excellent for your health. Having a dog can open conversations with others. You can meet people, other dog lovers. 

But ah, I'm suggesting that when you adopt a dog and do this for yourself and the dog. It's OK to ask someone else to get one for you, but please don't surprise anyone by gifting them a pet without their approval!

Consider what your priorities are. Some dogs are for protection. Some dogs are officially service or companion animals. Some dogs will mainly sleep on your lap. One of my friends says her dog picks her boyfriends.

This month we're going to have ourselves a merry doggy Christmas and explore some options for you!  And we start with NATIONAL MUTT DAY!

NATIONAL MUTT DAY IS TODAY!

Woof! Woof!

Missy  

PS: I have carefully chosen to link to organizations that I believe in! 

NATHANIEL BRANDON'S AFFAIR OF HIS OWN - EVENTUALLY HE ENLISTS HIS WIFE TO KEEP THIS SECRET FROM RAND

Nathaniel Brandon and Patrecia Gullison agreed to keep their affair a secret and he thought that their affair would end and not mean much.

Excerpt page 345: ...She turned down modeling jobs to be available to him.  He learned "to lie expertly," he wrote, "As I became a master at inventing reasons to be away from the office."  .... In early 1964, he reluctantly gave his wife (Barbara Branden) permission to conduct her own affair with an NBI colleague she had grown fond of. He didn't reveal his affair with Patrecia until three years later, when he needed her help in keeping his secret from Rand.

Missy here:  Despite almost flaunting it, Barbara took a while to catch on that her husband was having an affair with Patrecia.  But in the summer of 1965, she asked Nathaniel for a separation. From 1964-1966, Rand was still counseling the couple in order to help heal their relationship. To me this is all so convoluted. Ayn Rand may have had a philosophy - a theory - that could be applied to therapy but she was not at all qualified just based on her personal involvement with these people.  When the separation was announced, she may have hoped this would be when Branden turned to her, but it was not to be.

Excerpt page 347: Brandon stood on a precipice.  Should he tell the truth, risking Rand's anger and his own disinheritance, or take up his duties as Rand's lover?  He chose a third way, finding other but real incidental ailments to complain of: exhaustion from overwork, trauma from the end of his marriage, fragile self-esteem because of Rand's history of rebuking him, depression, "a sense of (emotional) deadness that made it exceedingly difficult to think of resuming a romance with her," and, somewhat astonishingly at this point, anguish over his second-fiddle status in the triangle with Frank, which had caused him pain in the past, he said, and almost surely would again.....

***

But, he was happy with Patrecia, perhaps more happy that he had ever been.  Ayn, perhaps as predicted, tried to find a way to analyze the relationship he had with Patrecia into oblivion. 

Excerpt page 349:  Gradually, his evasions, inconsistencies, and "drift" became intolerable to the woman for whom logic was tantamount to truth.  They began to have explosive arguments.

... The news of the Branden's impending divorce sent shock waves through the concentric circles of Rand's New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington D.C., Toronto, and Chicago organizations...

***

They denied others were involved in the decisions the couples made to divorce. It took three years into the affair, until 1966, that Nathaniel and Patrecia admitted to Barbara that they were going to start having sex! To me, this is a testimonial to the fear of Ayn Rand that Nathaniel must have felt. He seems to have been greatly confused about his feelings.

Perhaps Ayn had also had enough. When there are so many shades of grey, one sometimes starts to see thinks in black or white. Ultimately, but with tremendous anger, she did break with Nathaniel. It was an excommunication.

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AYN RAND : A LITERARY AUTHOR WHOSE BOOKS STILL SELL LIKE CRAZY

And the oldest published books are collector's items 

and can be found on-line selling for thousands.

Two of the best known.

Ayn put in significant time as a Hollywood screenwriter as well.

AYN : MRS. FRANK O'CONNOR and FRANK O'CONNOR : MR. AYN RAND : FAME AND FINANCIAL SUCCESS LEAD TO A DIFFERENT LIFESTYLE

Missy here!

In 1926, Ayn Rand first sighted Frank O'Connor, born in Ohio in 1897, and then twenty-nine, when he was a background actor. He had two brothers settled in Hollywood before he came. He eventually moved into some speaking roles.  They were married in 1929, about the time that her Visa was to expire.

Excerpt pages 66-67: There is no doubt that Ayn Rand did stalk Frank O'Connor.... She ambled over to his side, stuck out her foot, and tripped him. He apologized for stepping on her toes, and they exchanged names... Later that day, she waited for him on the weekly parole line, and they spoke to each other again. And then he disappeared for nine long months...

Rand was heartbroken, and obsessed....

She saw him again in the Hollywood branch of the public library, in May 1927...  Ayn and Frank began to see each other in the evenings and on weekends... Perhaps for the first time in her life, Rand was transparently, completely happy....  O'Connor probably gave her her first kiss; he was her first and, for a long time, only lover...

***

After some financial success due to her screenplay and authorship, in particular her novel The Fountainhead, which kept selling briskly, and after living in a cramped apartment, the couple moved to a house in the San Fernando Valley - Chatsworth - thirteen acres of farmland. The house had been designed for director Josef von Sternberg and his mistress Marlene Dietrich in 1935, a then modern steel and glass design!  Frank became a gentleman farmer while they could afford a cook, maid, and handyman. However, despite this new lifestyle, despite having her own office on the studio lot at Paramount where she wrote screenplays, Ayn considered New York City to be her spiritual home, They traveled there on business trips. She was famous now and her confidence was at an all time high. She began to attract young men as friends, was socializing and entertaining politically conservative friends.

In 1951 she told friends they were moving to New York. Soon they were driving cross-country to the city, where a rental apartment had been arranged for them. Maybe Frank believed it was temporary when he left his beloved farm in the care of others - perhaps five years, or seven, but they would never live in California again. Nathaniel Branden and his wife, Barbara, lived in New York.

Excerpt  page 237:  No one who knew O'Connor believed that he willingly left the San Fernando Valley ranch.  "That property was his business and his world," said Hill. "Ayn knew it.  There was no way she didn't know how badly she was hurting Frank."

***

Frank began working at a florist and took up painting...  By 1957 Ayn and Nathaniel were neighbors, spending time with each other two to three times a week, holding hands and hugging good-bye, though they were both married.  They were telling others they were "soulmates."  It took a while, since these actions were often in front of their spouses, but Nathaniel's wife Barbara finally realized that Ayn was in love with her husband and said so.

Excerpt page 255: ...Now at the height of her mental and emotional power (he was twenty-four and she was forty-nine), she had been rehearsing just such a moment of triangulated passion for at least half her life.  Branden, as flattered and incautious as he may have been, was out of his depth.  For all his flirtatiousness, he had never really contemplated an actual affair with his literary and intellectual idol, he later said...

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AYN RAND EARLY in HOLLYWOOD : WORKING SUBSISTENCE JOBS and A ROMANTIC PHILOSOPHY

Anne C. Heller is the author.

Page 68 excerpt:  From mid-1928 until the summer of 1929 - the last summer of the nation's long, carefree era of prosperity before the Great Depression - the girl with the sign of a crown on her forehead worked as a waitress, a department-store clerk, and a door-to-door saleswoman.  It was an embarrassing and probably a frightening time for her.  At age twenty-two she was without dependable employment in what was still to her a foreign country. She had half-jokingly boasted to family and friends that she would be famous within a year of reaching Hollywood, but for the moment she stood outside the golden circle of that City's opportunities. She had to borrow small sums from her Chicago relatives, and, according to unpunished letters from her parents, for a time on a twenty-five dollar monthly subsidy from them, in order to pay her Studio Club rent. Worst of all, her legal standing in the United States was in jeopardy.  While she had been working for DeMille, the director presumably sponsored visa extensions for her with the immigration service, as was the custom in movie industry.  Without a permanent job or a powerful sponsor, she had reason to fear that her time in the United States was running out.  At one point, things looked so bleak that Anna (her mother) actually urged her to come back to Russia, or at least to return to her relatives in Chicago.  Rand of course, refused.

Pride was not a defect of character in Ayn Rand's universe. She concealed her menial jobs from industry acquaintances by working in the suburbs, and she disguised her dire financial condition from O'Connor, who was making ends meet by working in a restaurant alongside Nick and Joe. (His brothers.) She wanted her suitor to see her at her best - that is, to see the woman in Ayn Rand. She already believed, as she would later write, that romance should never be mixed with suffering or pity.  Echoing her mother's Victorian maxims, she also thought that a woman should avoid cooking or cleaning in the presence of her lover and steer clear of becoming her lover's pal.....

Excerpt Page 71 : Ayn Rand and Frank O'Connor were married in the Los Angeles City Hall of Justice on April 15, 1929, either just before or just after Alice Rosenbaum's via officially expired.  Two weeks later, she and her husband took a borrowed car to Mexicali, Mexico, and re-entered the new name, Mrs. Charles Francis O'Connor, and a new legal status as the wife of an American citizen.  As such, she was entitled to a rapid evaluation to become a permanent resident, and eventually, a citizen. By June, having proved that she wasn't wanted for crimes in Soviet Russia, she received a permanent visa, the equivalent of a green card.  With only one exception, she never left the United States again. 

Missy here:  Comments from Frank's relative that Frank loved Ayn more than he loved any woman, feel telling to me. She had moved from the YMCA accommodations, where virtue of the young women who stayed there, was said to be protected, into a furnished room so she and Frank could become lovers. The author suggests that because of his Catholicism this would have propelled him to marry her anyway. I wish O'Connor's sense of his religion and sexuality were better known as this comes into conflict with the reportage that, after his mother's death, at age fourteen he dropped out of Catholicism and became a strong, life long atheist like Ayn. One of the reasons is that frustration with him sexually could have propelled her into seeking what she could not get out of her marriage elsewhere.

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BAGS OF IT

 

ABOUT LEAVING A COMMENT

I read every comment before deciding if I will publish it.  I'm looking for comments that are well spoken and well considered and that are on spot for the post the comment would appear under. I especially like comments that answer the questions I'm asking. I'm open to different opinions but please, think of how you spoke in class discussions at school and consider your audience!  For more information check out the PAGE about comments.

Friends, if there is a Kept Person you think I should do more research or reading about, please suggest books, articles, or leads to that information. 

THANKS!

Missy

CULTURED CARNATIONS

from Library of Congress

American Carnation Culture (1892)

SO MANY WAYS TO LOVE