Belle

<p><strong>The sensational true tale that inspired the major motion picture <em>Belle</em> starring Tom Wilkinson Miranda Richardson Emily Watson Penelope Wilton and Matthew Goode--a stunning story of the first mixed-race girl introduced to high society England and raised as a lady. </strong></p><p>The illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an enslaved African woman Dido Belle was sent to live with her great-uncle the Earl of Mansfield one of the most powerful men of the time and a leading opponent of slavery. Growing up in his lavish estate Dido was raised as a sister and companion to her white cousin Elizabeth. When a joint portrait of the girls commissioned by Mansfield was unveiled eighteenth-century England was shocked to see a black woman and white woman depicted as equals. Inspired by the painting <em>Belle</em> vividly brings to life this extraordinary woman caught between two worlds and illuminates the great civil rights question of her age: the fight to end slavery.</p><p><em>Belle</em> includes 20 pages of black-and-white photos.</p>