A Good Woman

A Good Woman may refer to:

A Good Woman (novel)

A Good Woman is a novel by Danielle Steel, published by Random House in October 2008. The book is Steel's seventy-sixth best selling novel.

Plot summary

Annabelle Worthington was born into a life of privilege in the glamorous New York society set living on Fifth Avenue and in Newport, Rhode Island. In April 1912, everything changed when the Titanic sank, changing her world forever. Annabelle then pours herself into volunteer work, nursing the poor, igniting a passion for medicine that would shape the course of her life.

More grief is around the corner with her first love and marriage to Josiah Millbank, a family friend. Betrayed by a scandal undeserved, Annabelle flees New York for war-ravaged France, to lose herself in a world of helping others in the First World War field hospital run by women. After the war, Annabelle become a Paris doctor and becomes a mother living happily until a coincidental meeting reminds her of her former life to which she returns stronger and braver than before, a new woman to fight against the overwhelming odds thrown against her in life.

A Good Woman (film)

A Good Woman is a 2004 drama film directed by Mike Barker. The screenplay by Howard Himelstein is based on the 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde. It is the fourth screen version of the work, following a 1916 silent film using Wilde's original title, Ernst Lubitsch's 1925 version and Otto Preminger's 1949 adaptation entitled The Fan.

Plot

Set in 1930, the film opens in New York City, where femme fatale Mrs. Erlynne finds that she is no longer welcomed by either the high-ranking men she has seduced or the society wives she has betrayed. Selling her jewelry, she buys passage on a liner bound for Amalfi, Italy, where she apparently sets her sights on newlywed Robert Windermere. When his car frequently is seen parked outside her villa, local gossips become convinced the two are having an affair.

Robert's demure wife Meg remains oblivious to the stories about the two circulating throughout the town, but when she discovers her husband's cheque register with numerous stubs indicating payments to Erlynne, she suspects the worst. What she doesn't know is that Erlynne actually is her mother, who has been extorting payments from Robert in return for keeping her secret. She is consoled with the advice, "Plain women resort to crying; pretty women go shopping."