Kissing and telling with gusto

Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs
introduced by Lesley Blanch
Phoenix, £9.99, pp. 471, ISBN 1842126326

What do a modern New York psychoanalyst and a Regency London courtesan have in common? Both offer escape, relaxation and individual attention; both are expensive. ‘In place of the alcove there is the analyst’s office. But basically the functions of both analyst and courtesan have the same principle,’ explains Lesley Blanch in her expansive introduction to the memoirs of the most famous of English courtesans, Harriette Wilson.