The Glitter and the Gold

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Author :
Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN 13 : 1444731009
Total Pages : 472 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (447 download)

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Book Synopsis The Glitter and the Gold by : Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

Download or read book The Glitter and the Gold written by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2011-10-13 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consuelo Vanderbilt was young, beautiful and the heir to a vast family fortune. She was also deeply in love with an American suitor when her mother chose instead for her to fulfil her social ambitions and marry an English Duke. Leaving her life in America, she came to England as the Duchess of Marlborough in 1895 and took up residence in her new home - Blenheim Palace. The 9th Duchess gives unique first-hand insight into life at the very pinnacle of English society in the Edwardian era. An unsnobbish, but often amused observer of the intricate hierarchy both upstairs and downstairs at Blenheim Palace, she is also a revealing witness to the glittering balls, huge weekend parties and major state occasions she attended or hosted. Here are her encounters with every important figure of the day - from Queen Victoria, Edward V11 and Queen Alexandra to Tsar Nicholas, Prince Metternich and the young Winston Churchill. Causing a scandal by separating from the Duke after 11 years, Consuelo began her new life as philanthropist, public speaker and campaigner for women's suffrage. Her literary soirees would include H G Wells, JM Barrie and George Bernard Shaw. In 1921 she remarried aviator Jacques Balsan moving with him to a chateau in the South of France. This intimate, richly enjoyable memoir is a wonderfully revealing portrait of a golden age.

Summary of Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's The Glitter and the Gold

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Author :
Publisher : Everest Media LLC
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 49 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (225 download)

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Book Synopsis Summary of Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's The Glitter and the Gold by : Everest Media,

Download or read book Summary of Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's The Glitter and the Gold written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-06-21T22:59:00Z with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 My family has its origins in the Netherlands. My grandfather, William H. Vanderbilt, had an unmerited reputation for indifference to the welfare of others. However, according to a friend of the family, Mr. Vanderbilt said, the public be damned. #2 My grandmother, Maria Louisa Kissam, was the daughter of a clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church. She had eight children, with my father being the second son. She was a lovely old lady, and all her grandchildren loved her. #3 My mother, Alva Erskine, was descended from the Stirlings, and she had a strong personality. She was a born dictator, and she dominated events about her as thoroughly as she eventually dominated her husband and her children. #4 My mother, Consuelo Yznaga, was a leader of New York society. She had many ambitions, including becoming a leader of society. She gave a fancy dress ball for the opening of her new house, 660 Fifth Avenue, on March 26, 1883.

Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt

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Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0060938250
Total Pages : 626 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (69 download)

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Book Synopsis Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt by : Amanda Mackenzie Stuart

Download or read book Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt written by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2007-01-09 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Consuelo Vanderbilt's grandfather died, he was the richest man in America. Her father soon started to spend the family fortune, enthusiastically supported by Consuelo's mother, Alva, who was determined to take the family to the top of New York society—forcing a heartbroken Consuelo into a marriage she did not want with the underfunded Duke of Marlborough. But the story of Consuelo and Alva is more than a tale of enterprising social ambition, Gilded Age glamour, and the emptiness of wealth. It is a fascinating account of two extraordinary women who struggled to break free from the world into which they were born—a world of materialistic concerns and shallow elitism in which females were voiceless and powerless—and of their lifelong dedication to noble and dangerous causes and the battle for women's rights.

Tombee

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Author :
Publisher : William Morrow
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 766 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Tombee by : Theodore Rosengarten

Download or read book Tombee written by Theodore Rosengarten and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 1992 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this brilliant account of life in the antebellum South, Rosengarten brings readers a masterful piece of history told from two perspectives. Tombee is the biography of Thomas Chaplin, the unlucky slave master and proprietor of Tombee Plantation. The book also contains the personal journal Chaplin kept, providing a relentless study of the horror of plantation slavery. Maps and charts.

Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough

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Author :
Publisher : Holt McDougal
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough by : Hugo Vickers

Download or read book Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough written by Hugo Vickers and published by Holt McDougal. This book was released on 1980 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gladys Marie Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (née Deacon; 1881? 1977), was a US socialite famous for her good looks. She was the mistress and later the second wife of Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough. Born in Paris, Gladys Marie Deacon was the daughter of Edward Deacon and his wife Florence, daughter of Admiral Charles H. Baldwin. She had three sisters and a brother who died in infancy. Her father was imprisoned after shooting her mother's lover to death in 1892 and the girl was sent to school at the Convent de l?Assomption at Auteuil. After Edward's release from prison, Florence abducted Gladys from the convent. The couple was divorced in 1893 and the custody of the three older children, including Gladys, was given to Edward. He took them to the United States, where Deacon remained for the next three years. Edward Deacon soon became mentally unstable and was hospitalised at McLean Hospital, dying there in 1901. Deacon and her sisters returned to France to live with their mother.

Fortune's Children

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Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062288377
Total Pages : 601 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis Fortune's Children by : Arthur T. Vanderbilt, II

Download or read book Fortune's Children written by Arthur T. Vanderbilt, II and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vanderbilt: the very name signifies wealth. The family patriarch, "the Commodore," built up a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet, less than fifty years after the Commodore's death, one of his direct descendants died penniless, and no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Fortune's Children tells the dramatic story of all the amazingly colorful spenders who dissipated such a vast inheritance.

King Lehr

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Publisher : Applewood Books
ISBN 13 : 1557099634
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (57 download)

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Book Synopsis King Lehr by : Elizabeth Beresford

Download or read book King Lehr written by Elizabeth Beresford and published by Applewood Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harry Symes Lehr was born in 1869 into a family that was neither wealthy nor socially prominent. His natural gift for entertaining and his penchant for hobnobbing with the very rich earned him entry to the powerful circle of the New York and Newport social elite, where Harry clowned his way to a position of prominence. One of his admirers and patrons, Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, introduced him to a young widow, Elizabeth Wharton Drexel. Elizabeth was smitten with young Harry, his elegant dress, and outrageous behavior. They were soon married. But King Lehr had a secret--he was not what he seemed. On their wedding night he cruelly dictated to his new bride the rules of their strange bedfellowship. For twenty-three years, Mrs. Lehr protected his secret and remained in a loveless and abusive marriage. After Harry's death, Elizabeth remarried, to the Baron Decies. Lady Decies wrote down her secret story in 1938, incorporating Harry's most intimate diaries, and told all in this scandalous tale of power, desire, and deception.

When the Astors Owned New York

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101218819
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (12 download)

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Book Synopsis When the Astors Owned New York by : Justin Kaplan

Download or read book When the Astors Owned New York written by Justin Kaplan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this marvelous anecdotal history, Justin Kaplan––Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Mark Twain––vividly brings to life a glittering, bygone age. Endowed with the largest private fortunes of their day, cousins John Jacob Astor IV and William Waldorf Astor vied for primacy in New York society, producing the grandest hotels ever seen in a marriage of ostentation and efficiency that transformed American social behavior. Kaplan exposes it all in exquisite detail, taking readers from the 1890s to the Roaring Twenties in a combination of biography, history, architectural appreciation, and pure reading pleasure

The Sphinx

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Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 1529390753
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (293 download)

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Book Synopsis The Sphinx by : Hugo Vickers

Download or read book The Sphinx written by Hugo Vickers and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2020-01-09 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **The Times and Sunday Times Books of the Year 2020** **The Times Best Biography Audiobook of the Year 2021** 'Vickers gives breathing, alarming life to a woman who puzzled and thrilled her contemporaries' SUNDAY TIMES 'Best Paperbacks of 2021' 'A continuously astonishing and ultimately moving account of a unique figure, the stuff of great literature' Simon Callow, SUNDAY TIMES 'Gripping . . . jaw-dropping story, brilliantly told' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, THE TIMES 'Mr. Vickers, with his sharp eye for detail, splendidly captures the drama of Gladys's life and the amazing cast of characters she encountered' WALL STREET JOURNAL 'This biography is truly wonderful - a masterclass in storytelling' SUNDAY TIMES 'The most extraordinary, rackety life' William Boyd, DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Richly anecdotal and oddly captivating' Miranda Seymour, FINANCIAL TIMES 'At the end of the book the reader can only say, "Whew! What a story!"' Anne de Courcy, SPECTATOR 'Hugo Vickers's life of Gladys Marlborough is an extraordinary and tragic story, with special resonance today' EVENING STANDARD ******************* One of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her time, Gladys Deacon dazzled and puzzled the glittering social circles in which she moved. Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, Gladys emerged from a traumatic childhood - her father having shot her mother's lover dead when Gladys was only eleven - to captivate and inspire some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Epoque. Marcel Proust wrote of her, 'I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm.' Berenson considered marrying her, Rodin and Monet befriended her, Boldini painted her and Epstein sculpted her. She inspired love from diverse Dukes and Princes, and the interest of women such as the Comtesse Greffulhe and Gertrude Stein. In 1921, when Gladys was forty, she achieved the wish she had held since the age of fourteen to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, then freshly divorced from fellow American Consuelo Vanderbilt. Gladys's circle now included Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lytton Strachey and Winston Churchill, who described her as 'a strange, glittering being'. But life at Blenheim was not a success: when the Duke evicted her in 1933, the only remaining signs of Gladys were two sphinxes bearing her features on the west terraces and mysterious blue eyes in the grand portico. She became a recluse, and the wax injections she'd had to straighten her nose when she was 22 had by now ravaged her beauty. Gladys was to spend her last years in the psycho-geriatric ward of a mental hospital, where she was discovered by a young Hugo Vickers. Intrigued and compelled to unmask the truth of her mysterious life, Vickers visited her over the course of two years, eventually publishing Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough, a biography of her life - and his first book - in 1979, two years after Gladys's death. Forty years on, Vickers has now completely rewritten and revised his original biography, updating it with previously unavailable material and drawing on his own personal research all over Europe and America. He once asked Gladys, 'Where is Gladys Deacon?' She answered him slowly, 'Gladys Deacon? . . . She never existed.' The Sphinx is a fascinating portrait of this elusive but brilliant woman who was at the centre of a now bygone era of wealth and privilege - and a tribute to one of the brightest stars of her age.

American Duchess

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Author :
Publisher : William Morrow
ISBN 13 : 9781643852492
Total Pages : 580 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (524 download)

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Book Synopsis American Duchess by : Karen S. Harper

Download or read book American Duchess written by Karen S. Harper and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 2019 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reimagines the life of American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt as the reluctant and bullied bride of the Duke of Marlborough before she finds the inner strength to fight for women's equality.

The Husband Hunters

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Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1250164613
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis The Husband Hunters by : Anne de Courcy

Download or read book The Husband Hunters written by Anne de Courcy and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deliciously told group biography of the young, rich, American heiresses who married into the impoverished British aristocracy at the turn of the twentieth century – the real women who inspired Downton Abbey Towards the end of the nineteenth century and for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, fifty years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known 'Dollar Princess', married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour and sophistication of the Gilded Age. Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women and their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive first-hand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs and letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England - and what England thought of them.

The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910

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Publisher : Black Dog & Leventhal
ISBN 13 : 031635368X
Total Pages : 681 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (163 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910 by : Esther Crain

Download or read book The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910 written by Esther Crain and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The drama, expansion, mansions and wealth of New York City's transformative Gilded Age era, from 1870 to 1910, captured in a magnificently illustrated hardcover. In forty short years, New York City suddenly became a city of skyscrapers, subways, streetlights, and Central Park, as well as sprawling bridges that connected the once-distant boroughs. In Manhattan, more than a million poor immigrants crammed into tenements, while the half of the millionaires in the entire country lined Fifth Avenue with their opulent mansions. The Gilded Age in New York captures what is was like to live in Gotham then, to be a daily witness to the city's rapid evolution. Newspapers, autobiographies, and personal diaries offer fascinating glimpses into daily life among the rich, the poor, and the surprisingly large middle class. The use of photography and illustrated periodicals provides astonishing images that document the bigness of New York: the construction of the Statue of Liberty; the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge; the shimmering lights of Luna Park in Coney Island; the mansions of Millionaire's Row. Sidebars detail smaller, fleeting moments: Alice Vanderbilt posing proudly in her "Electric Light" ball gown at a society-changing masquerade ball; immigrants stepping off the boat at Ellis Island; a young Theodore Roosevelt witnessing Abraham Lincoln's funeral. The Gilded Age in New York is a rare illustrated look at this amazing time in both the city and the country as a whole. Author Esther Crain, the go-to authority on the era, weaves first-hand accounts and fascinating details into a vivid tapestry of American society at the turn of the century. Praise for New-York Historical Society New York City in 3D In The Gilded Age, also by Esther Crain: "Vividly captures the transformation from cityscape of horse carriages and gas lamps 'bursting with beauty, power and possibilities' as it staggered into a skyscraping Imperial City." -- Sam Roberts, The New York Times "Get a glimpse of Edith Wharton's world." -- Entertainment Weekly Must List "What better way to revisit this rich period . . ?" -- Library Journal

To Marry an English Lord

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Author :
Publisher : Workman Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 0761171983
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (611 download)

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Book Synopsis To Marry an English Lord by : Gail MacColl

Download or read book To Marry an English Lord written by Gail MacColl and published by Workman Publishing Company. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Marvelous and entertaining.” —Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey Discover the true stories behind the women who inspired DowntonAbbey and HBO’s The Gilded Age, the heiresses—including a Vanderbilt (railroads), a LaRoche (pharmaceuticals), and a Rogers (oil)—who staked their ground in England, swapping dollars for titles and marrying peers of the British realm. Filled with vivid personalities, grand houses, dashing earls, and a wealth of period details and quotes on the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette, To Marry an English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible. Sex, snobbery, humor, social triumphs (and gaffes), are all recalled in marvelous detail, complete with parties, clothes, scandals, affairs, and 100-year-old gossip that’s still scorching.

Alone Together

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Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062219731
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis Alone Together by : Theodora Getty Gaston

Download or read book Alone Together written by Theodora Getty Gaston and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theodora "Teddy" Getty Gaston—now one hundred years old—reveals the glamorous yet painful story of her marriage to J. Paul Getty. As formidable as Getty was, his wife was equally strong-minded and flamboyant, and their clutches and clashes threw off sparks. She knew the vulnerable side of Getty—he underwent painful plastic surgery and suffered terrible phobias—that few, if any, saw. A vivid love story, Alone Together is also a fascinating glimpse into the twentieth century from the vantage point of one of its most remarkable couples. This is how the other half lived—dinner dances, satin gowns, beach houses, hotel suites, first-class cabins on the Queen Mary. Teddy's extra-ordinary life story moves from the glittering nightclubs of 1930s New York City to Mussolini's Italy, where she was imprisoned by the fascist regime, to California in the golden postwar years, where Paul and Teddy socialized with movie stars and the elite. But life with one of the world's richest men wasn't all glitz and glamour. Though terrifically charismatic in person, Getty grew more miserly as his wealth increased. Worse, he often left Teddy and their son, Timothy, behind for years at a time while he built planes for the war effort in the 1940s or brokered oil deals—he was the first American to lease mineral rights in Saudi Arabia, which made him, at his death, the richest man in the world. Even when Timothy was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Getty complained about medical bills and failed to return to the United States to support his wife and son. When Timothy died at age twelve, the marriage was already falling apart. Teddy's unrelenting spirit, her valiant friendship, and her winning lack of vanity transform what could have been a sob story into a nuanced portrait of a brilliant but stubbornly difficult man and the family he loved but left behind, as well as an enchanting view into a bygone era. This was a life lived from the heart.

The Churchill Who Saved Blenheim

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Author :
Publisher : Unicorn
ISBN 13 : 9781912690220
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis The Churchill Who Saved Blenheim by : Michael Waterhouse

Download or read book The Churchill Who Saved Blenheim written by Michael Waterhouse and published by Unicorn. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History has not been kind to Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, or "Sunny," as he was known. This is because, as Michael Waterhouse and Karen Wiseman reveal, it was largely written by his first wife, the "dollar princess" Consuelo Vanderbilt. Not an easy man, their marriage was indeed an unhappy one. However, he was not entirely to blame for the unhappiness of his marriage to Consuelo; in fact, it would be fair to say that he was sinned against more than sinned. His second wife, Gladys Deacon, proved far too unstable to be the love and companion of his life. Though he needed love, he never found a woman who loved him enough. In The Churchill Who Saved Blenheim, Waterhouse and Wiseman give us the life of a man who lived through a time of great change and felt the responsibility of preserving his home, Blenheim Palace, and the way of life he knew. He was a quiet, well-educated, introverted man who took his role as head of a great estate most seriously. He cared for his tenants and his servants. To those he loved, he was loyal, generous, unfailingly helpful, and courteous, and when necessary, he was also that rare and valuable thing: a critical friend. He left Blenheim in a far better state than he found it. This was his greatest achievement. And this is his story.

Society as I Have Found it

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 500 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis Society as I Have Found it by : Ward McAllister

Download or read book Society as I Have Found it written by Ward McAllister and published by . This book was released on 1890 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Samuel Ward McAllister (December 1827?January 31, 1895) was the self-appointed arbiter of New York society from the 1860s to the early 1890s."--Wikipedia.

Vanderbilt

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Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 006296464X
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (629 download)

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Book Synopsis Vanderbilt by : Anderson Cooper

Download or read book Vanderbilt written by Anderson Cooper and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts. One of the Washington Post's Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2021 When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,” subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all. Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other. Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.