Jane Digby (1807-1881) had everything: beauty, aristocratic connections, money, and, as revealed in her letters, poetry, and intimate diaries, a highly original mind. Said to be the most beautiful woman in Regency England, she was married at eighteen to an ambitious politician twice her age, and at twenty-one was involved in a scandalous, much-publicized divorce. Jane had fallen in love with a dashing Austrian diplomat, and she did not care what the world thought.

After the divorce, every door in London was closed to Jane, and so she lived abroad, where she was wooed or wedded by some of the most fascinating men in Europe: among them a duke, an Albanian bandit chief, and King Ludwig I of Bavaria. She was an intrepid traveler and finally found her happiness in Arabia, where she married a sheik and divided her time between the oasis of Damascus and the hard life of Bedouin nomads.