Georgina had other ideas. Her scandalous affair with a married man and her defiant marriage to the less-than-prosperous young hussar officer Harry Weldon were just the first signs that she was no ordinary girl.

Harry and Georgina managed to better their position enough to move to Tavistock House, where Charles Dickens once lived. There, Georgina took in a menagerie of animals and orphans and acquired a string of lovers, male and female, including the famous French composer Charles Gounod. In a plot that could have been constructed by Dickens himself, Georgina was stung by con artists, betrayed by her parents, and narrowly escaped being committed to a mental institution.

An 1882 Act of Parliament gave her the legal right to represent herself in court, and Georgina became one of the first Victorian women to sue her persecutors, helping to overturn England's infamous Lunacy Laws, which allowed patients to be committed without proper medical examination and help indefinitely against their will.

Like the best Victorian novels, "The disastrous Mrs. Weldon" marries the adventures of an intrepid protagonist with delightfully revealing behind-the-scenes glimpses of Victorian society. A tale of sex and scandal, bravado and bravery, Mrs. Weldon's life story iswild, wicked, and totally irresistible.