Harriette Wilson

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HW turned her career as an early nineteenth-century courtesan to good practical use as a memoirist and writer of scandal fiction: though she shows genuine literary talent, the primary aim of her writing was blackmail. She also wrote drama and verse.
  • BirthName: Harriette Dubouchet
    This is sometimes spelled Dubochet or Du Bochet.

  • Self-constructed: Wilson
    Her choice of the name Wilson is a mystery that baffles her biographer Frances Wilson. No lover of this name has been traced, though she sometimes temporarily assumed the name of her protector.
    Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
    4-5
    ; Lamb
    Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
    46
  • Married: Rochfort
Harriette Wilson, in a stipple engraving by James Thompson from a painting by George Clint, published 1821 and in her "Memoirs", vol. 1, 1825. The print includes the words "from an original painting in her collection," and reproduces her signature. She looks sexy yet not ungenteel: her short, dark, curly hair has a prominent kiss-curl; her dress has a high, lacy collar, low neckline with pearls, and semi-transparent fabric over her breasts. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Milestones

22 February 1786

Harriette Dubouchet (later HW ) was born at 2 Carrington Street, Mayfair, London, the most fashionable district in the recently-developed West End.
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
5

6 January 1825

Newspapers advertised the first instalment of HW 's Memoirs as due next day—but the promised contents (a list of names headed by the king and three dukes) was an obvious invitation to buy out.
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
200

February 1825

HW began, with the first instalment, to issue her Memoirs through John Joseph Stockdale : four volumes followed the more numerous, briefer instalments.
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
198

25 March 1825

HW (who had composed but not yet issued her account of her friend Julia Johnstone 's death in 1815) was confronted with the first instalment of Johnstone's Confessions, written to confute her own Memoirs.
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
207

Late August 1825

The three final instalments of HW 's Memoirs appeared as a single paper-bound package: the delay since May may have been caused by Stockdale 's involvement in a libel case.
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
200

January 1830

HW published, anonymously, her second roman à clef, Clara Gazul; or, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
279

10 March 1845

HW died at her house in Chelsea, leaving a careful estimate of her funeral expenses and requests to ex-lovers to pay them.
Wilson, Harriette. “Editorial Materials”. The Blackmailing of the Chancellor, edited by Kenneth Bourne, Lemon Tree Press, 1975, p. Various pages.
71
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
297

Biography

Birth

22 February 1786

Harriette Dubouchet (later HW ) was born at 2 Carrington Street, Mayfair, London, the most fashionable district in the recently-developed West End.
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
5

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