As part of my October Blog Tour for Floats the Dark Shadow, I’ll be adding a couple of new pages to my website.
The first is The World of the Courtesan, which has bits and pieces of general history with a focus on the famous beauties of the Belle Époque. Among the courtesans are Marie Duplessis, Cora Pearl, Liane de Pougy and others.

La Belle Otero in one of her daring costumes.
There are photographs and posters of these courtesans from the fin-de-siècle

The ballerina Cléo de Mérode.
And there are paintings from many eras.

Henry Fuseli’s painting, Courtesan.
There’s even one of the Greek namesake of the much loved heroine of Kerry Greenwood’s Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Phyrne Fisher, whose father really meant to name her Psyche, but was too drunk to get it right, and so got it delightfully wrong.
Come have a look and learn a little more about some of the fascinating women of the era.