PLACES
At the time of Rosetta’s marriage to Louis Raphael in 1899, the Hotel Windsor was called the Grand Hotel. The name by which this establishment has most commonly been known during the great majority of its one hundred and thirty-two year history has been used in order to avoid confusion.
The hotel’s address in Melbourne’s Spring Street is unchanged. Indeed, the address of every location referred to in this book, be it public edifice or private dwelling, is both precise and correct, from the Raphael family home, Frances Villa, in Faraday Street, Carlton, and Rosetta’s Queen Street, Woollahra, residence, to Professor Zeno’s New Bond Street rooms in London and Baroness Stern’s Cap Martin villa.
In appearance, most buildings remain more or less intact, although several, including Zeno’s laboratory in the Edgware Road, London, and the Restorium Private Hospital at Bondi, have been demolished in favour of more contemporary developments.
Sadly, save for several information panels that have been strategically placed by Waverley Municipal Council along the approaches to Tamarama Beach, virtually no trace of Mr Anderson’s fantastic amusement park, Wonderland City, remains.
Nevertheless, I have been told that, if you happen to be strolling on the cliffs late at night when the wind sweeps in from the south and the tide is running high, you might hear a certain, indistinct sound carried on the breeze. I believe it is a kind of faint trumpeting, strangely like the cry of a distant beast, a pachyderm.
A.J.
PROFESSOR CARL ZENO’S LIST OF PATRONS
Lady Archibald Campbell (the Duke of Argyll’s daughter-in-law and subject of a famously controversial portrait by Whistler); the Princess of Pless (the former Daisy Cornwallis-West, wife of the extraordinarily wealthy Hans Heinrich XV of Germany); Lord Victor Paget (heir to the Marquis of Anglesey); Prince Min of Korea (ministerial plenipotentiary); Lady Lilian Bagot (Baltimore-born daughter of a US Congressman, wife of Conservative politician the 4th Baron Bagot); Sir Edgar Vincent (art collector, politician, diplomat and author, 12th Baronet of Stoke d’Abernon); Her Grace the Duchess of Rutland (Lady Violet Manners, artist and prominent member of the literary salon The Souls); Lady Diana Manners (actress, daughter of the Duchess of Rutland, later social identity Lady Diana Cooper); The Right Hon. Diana Lister (daughter of the 4th Baron Ribblesdale, became the wife of Chanel’s former lover Boy Capel and later married the Earl of Westmorland); Her Grace the Duchess of Westminster (the former Constance [Shelagh] Cornwallis-West, sister of the Princess of Pless); Lady Juliet Duff (daughter of the 4th Earl of Lonsdale and the Marchioness of Ripon, patron of the arts, notable supporter of the Ballets Russes); Lady Bathurst (daughter of Baron Glenesk, owner of The Daily Telegraph); Sir Fitzwilliam (Eric Spencer Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 9th Earl, army officer); The Right Hon. the Countess of Glasgow (wife of the former Governor of New Zealand); Lady Anna Rosslyn (Countess Rosslyn, previously Minneapolis chorus girl Anna Robinson); Sir John (former Australian politician and Chief Justice of Tasmania) and Lady Dodds; Vice Admiral Charles Windham (naval hero and Gentleman Usher to the King); Colonel Smith; Captain Parker; Lady Parker; Major Simpson; Thomas Beecham (renowned conductor, founder of the London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic orchestras); Sir Oliver Lodge (winner of the Royal Society’s Rumford Medal, first Principal of the University of Birmingham); Miss Gertie Miller (actress and singer, married the Earl of Dudley, 4th Governor General of Australia and great-grandfather of Australian actress/director Rachel Ward); Miss Thelma Raye (Brazilian-born performer, later the wife of English screen legend Ronald Colman); Miss Gabrielle Ray (musical comedy star, included Alfred Vanderbilt and King Manuel of Portugal among her admirers); Captain Higson (Master of the Hunt, served with the 14th Hussars); Mrs Marconi (wife of the Nobel Prize-winning inventor Guglielmo Marconi, formerly the Hon. Beatrice O’Brien, daughter of the 14th Baron Inchiquin, and later the Marquise di Montecorona); The Right Hon. Earl of Sandwich (author, spiritualist, Conservative Member of Parliament); Madame Ernesta Stern (authoress, famous saloniste, widow of the French banker Baron Louis Stern); Lady Miller.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A number of publications have provided me with invaluable information. These include:
Ackroyd, P., London: The Biography, Vintage, London, 2001
Barnes, J., Arthur & George, Jonathan Cape, London, 2005
Bell, M. (Editor), And The Spirit Lingers …, Genazzano College History Committee, Burwood, 1988
Betcherman, L., The Riviera Set: From Queen Victoria to Princess Grace, Bev Editions, Smashwords, 2010
Farris Thompson, R., Tango: The Art History of Love, Vintage, 2006
Freyd, J., Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 1998
Hoss de le Comte, M.G., The Tango, Maizal, Buenos Aires, 2000
Howell, G., In Vogue, Penguin, London, 1978
Kolatch, A., The Jewish Book of Why, Jonathan David, New York, 1981
Lindsay, N., Bohemians of the Bulletin, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1965
McKernan, M., Australians at Home, World War I, The Five Mile Press, Scoresby, 2014
Penglase, J., Orphans of the Living: Growing Up in ‘Care’ in Twentieth-Century Australia, Fremantle Press, Perth, 2010
Twopeny, R., Town Life in Australia, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1973 (first published London, 1883)
Van der Kiste, J., Charlotte and Feodora, Amazon KDP, 2012
Woodhead, L., War Paint: Miss Elizabeth Arden and Madame Helena Rubinstein, Virago Press, London, 2003
Writer, L., Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh and the Razor Gangs, Macmillan, Sydney, 2001
Ziegler, P., Diana Cooper, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1983
Ziegler, P., Mountbatten: The Official Biography, Collins, London, 1985
My great-grandmother, Rosetta, known in London as Madame Zeno, c. 1913. By age thirty-three and as stylish as she was arresting, Rosetta had beguiled society both in Europe and Great Britain.
Rosetta holds one of her exquisite tea cups while her nonchalant paramour looks on. Melbourne, c. 1905.
Wonderland City with, among its thrilling attractions, the Switchback Railway (foreground) and an airship perilously suspended above the sea. Tamarama Beach, Sydney, c. 1907. Waverley Library Local History Image Collection
Rosetta, pictured at Sydney’s Government House with a chauffeur and her splendid Packard limousine, c.1928.
The distinguished Professor Carl Zeno, ‘erstwhile of Japan’. In reality, William Norman, son of a Chinese immigrant who came to Australia to work on the goldfields. London, c. 1910.
Rosetta’s daughter, my grandmother Frances Catherine Raphael, age two, Melbourne, 1902. Only three years later, her mother ran away.
The aristocratic Lilian Pakenham developed a unique relationship with Zeno and Rosetta. Photographed by T. Humphrey, Table Talk, Melbourne, 13 October 1899. National Library of Australia
‘A figure, white as alabaster, in a dark, sylvan glade.’ Zeno is thought to have created this portrait of Rosetta during the early 1930s.
Professor Zeno’s astonishing List of Patrons.
My parents, Asher and Sybil – later the Hon. Sir Asher and Lady Joel – attending a state banquet held in honour of Queen Elizabeth II, Sydney, 1954. My mother doesn’t know she has a grandmother living in the same city.
This photograph of me, age five, was taken in 1958. It was the same year that Rosetta, my unknown and unseen great-grandmother, died.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many extremely generous people who made this book possible. First and foremost among them are my mother, who never hesitated to share her memories even though this could not always have been either easy or comfortable; and my father, without whose rare combination of skill, curiosity and determination much of the research that informs Rosetta would have been unavailable.
Among the substantial number of institutions and individuals who rendered invaluable assistance are: Julianne Barlow, Archivist, and Sarah
Salter, former Alumni Manager, Genazzano; Elizabeth Brown, Library and Research Officer, Australian Racing Museum; David Dale; Silvana Ferraris, Open Space Booking Officer, Randwick City Council; Jane de Teliga; Faber Academy; Dr Robert Fisher; Nancy Goldstein; Martin Indyk; Michael Joel; Evelyn Juers; David Kent; Philip Krass; Patti Miller; Judy Morgan; Gloria Parry; Frank Solomon; the NSW Government Office of Environment and Heritage; the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages; the Chinese Museum, Melbourne; the Museum of Sydney; the National Library of Australia; the State Library of New South Wales; the State Library of Victoria; and Waverley Municipal Library.
I would like to express particular appreciation to my friend and trusted reader, Susan Williams, for her enthusiasm and encouragement.
A special debt of gratitude is owed to Mr Frederick Koch for inviting me to Villa Torre Clementina at Cap Martin, France, and to Mr Koch’s property manager, Mark Ryan.
I am also grateful to Jan Worthington, my father’s principal researcher. Sadly, many of the people who were interviewed by either Jan or my father, or who helped in other ways, have now passed away. I remain, as was my father, very thankful for their contribution.
I have been especially fortunate to have the support of my agent, Catherine Drayton, my inspiring editor, Fiona Daniels, and the exceptional Random House team, including commissioning editor Sophie Ambrose and publishing director Nikki Christer. Designer Sandy Cull created the cover of my dreams. All brought to Rosetta the best possible combination of passion and dedication.
When one writes a book the people closest to the author have a great deal with which to contend. My children, Bennett and Arabella, were unfailingly supportive, as was my husband, Philip Mason. Philip also provided much practical assistance, enabling me to both embark upon far-flung research forays and, indeed, continue to write Rosetta without losing my way.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexandra Joel is the author of Best Dressed: 200 Years of Fashion in Australia and Parade: The Story of Fashion in Australia. Both books detail the development of fashion, style and national identity.
She is a former editor of the Australian edition of Harper’s Bazaar and of Portfolio, Australia’s first magazine for working women. She has also been a regular contributor of feature articles, interviews and reviews to a number of national and metropolitan publications.
More recently, Alexandra has been a practising counsellor and psychotherapist. She is an honours graduate from the University of Sydney.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Penguin Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
ROSETTA
ePub ISBN – 9780143780458
First published by Vintage in 2016
Copyright © Alexandra Joel, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Vintage book
Published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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Addresses for the Penguin Random House group of companies can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Joel, Alexandra, 1953– author
Rosetta: a scandalous true story/Alexandra Joel
ISBN 978 0 14378 045 8 (ebook: epub)
Solomon, Rosetta
Women – Australia – Biography
Runaway wives – Australia – Biography
Family secrets
920.72
Cover image © Sarah Jarrett, courtesy of Arcangel
Cover design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingko
Rosetta Page 28
