"These irreverent accounts of the doings of abominably rich scoundrels, of sterling efforts in the sack and the inevitable bastard offspring, of bloodsports, duels and high-stakes gambling, will amuse and appal in equal measure. Find out how the British and European aristocracy - from Argyll to Wellington and from Byron to Tolstoy - bred generations of braying, tweed-clad grotesques; annoying, constipated upper-crust duffers; and, just occasionally, clever men and women who did something really useful with their time and their money"--Back cover.