The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives Of The Curzon Sisters

Irene (born 1896), Cynthia (born 1898) and Alexandria (born 1904) were the three daughters of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India 1898-1905. The three sisters were at the very heart of the fast and glittering world of the Twenties and Thirties.

Irene had love affairs in the glamourous Melton Mowbray hunting set. Cynthia ('Cimmie') married Oswald Mosley, joining him first in the Labour Party before following him into fascism. Alexandra ('Baba'), the youngest and most beautiful, married the Prince of Wales' best friend Fruity Metcalfe.

On Cimmie's early death in 1933, Baba flung herself into a long and passionate affair with Mosley and a liaison with Mussolini's ambassador to London, Count Dino Grandi, while enjoying the romantic devotion of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax.

The war finds them based at 'the Dorch' (the Dorchester Hotel) doing good works. At the end of their extraordinary lives, Irene and Baba have become, rather improbably, pillars of the establishment, Irene being made one of the very first Life Peers in 1958 for her work with youth clubs.