Her name was never Lola Montez and she was not from Spain, but she dazzled a whole epoch with her captivating beauty and passionate temperament.

Dancer, adventurer and courtesan, her life was a series of voyages, scandals and strange adventures. She pretended to be a Spanish dancer and performed in the world’s most important theatres, even though her artistic talent left a lot to be desired. But nothing could stop the Irishwoman Elizabeth Gilbert from triumphing at everything she put her hand to. She rubbed shoulders with the most famous writers, politicians, musicians and aristocrats of her time, figures such as Alexandre Dumas, Honoré de Balzac and George Sand. She married three times and had a number of lovers, including a passionate affair with the composer Franz Liszt. And she captured the heart of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who named her Countess of Landsfeld, swept away by a passion that led to his abdication in 1848. After her time in Europe, she set off for the United States, where she lived through the gold rush and danced for the miners.

Divine Lola takes us to exotic climes and remote lands, from Lola’s native Ireland to magical India; we travel to such cities as Paris, London and Munich, where she dazzled men with her ‘Spanish dances’, as well as to dangerous places such as California and Australia, where she lived as an intrepid pioneer. Cristina Morató uncovers for us the extraordinary history of one of the most famous women of the nineteenth century.

A woman touched by scandal, who had the whole world at her feet.