This audiobook is read by the author.
New York Times bestselling author Laura Thompson returns with Heiresses, a fascinating look at the lives of heiresses throughout history and the often tragic truth beneath the gilded surface.
Heiresses: surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife's inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions.
Heiresses tells the stories of these women: Mary Davies, who inherited London's most valuable real estate, and was bartered from the age of twelve; Consuelo Vanderbilt, the original American "Dollar Heiress", forced into a loveless marriage; Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress who married seven times and died almost penniless; Patty Hearst, heiress to a newspaper fortune who was arrested for terrorism. However, there are also stories of achievement: Angela Burdett-Coutts, who became one of the greatest philanthropists of Victorian England; Nancy Cunard, who lived off her mother's fortune and became a pioneer of the civil rights movement; Daisy Fellowes, elegant linchpin of interwar high society and noted fashion editor.
Heiresses is about the lives of the rich, who—as F. Scott Fitzgerald said—are 'different'. But it is also a bigger story about how all women fought their way to equality, and sometimes even found autonomy and fulfilment.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
February 15, 2022 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781250837554
- File size: 376070 KB
- Duration: 13:03:28
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
Author Laura Thompson gives an engaging and well-packed narration of this expansive history of British and American heiresses from the seventeenth century to the present day. Thompson is a gifted storyteller who places appropriate emphasis on words or phrases to accentuate their importance. Some heiresses are familiar--Consuelo Vanderbilt and Barbara Hutton, for example--while others are less well known. Thompson details the women's everyday lives, noting the threats to their safety. In the seventeenth and eighteen centuries heiresses were often kidnapped and forced to marry against their will. The volume also incorporates stories of heiresses who promoted good works, including activist Nancy Cunard and philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts. Thompson provides intriguing social commentary by weaving in mentions of novels with wealthy female characters. M.J. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine -
June 1, 2022
Biographer Thompson (The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters) sketches the lives of British and American women who were shaped by inherited money. She sets the scene with an overview of heiresses in literature, particularly in Jane Austen's novels, then jumps back to the tragic story of one of England's earliest heiresses, Mary Davies, whose inheritance made her a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. This is typical of the lives of 18th-and early 19th-century heiresses: their value is in their ability to raise their husband's status. The Gilded Age stories become more familiar yet equally tragic. There are some rays of light, such as Winnaretta Singer, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune, who built a life as a patron of the arts (and an out lesbian) in early 20th-century Paris. The lives of 20th-century heiresses (Emerald Cunard, Barbara Hutton, Patty Hearst, et al.) are chronicled in the last half. Thompson narrates the audiobook in a crisp British accent that's a good fit for the content; her tone and pace vary to heighten tension or share a good bit of gossip. VERDICT Suggested to those who enjoyed Anderson Cooper's Vanderbilt or Bill Dedman's Empty Mansions.--Nanette Donohue
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-
December 20, 2021
Biographer Thompson (Six Girls) unearths secrets and scandals in this entertaining group portrait of women, mainly British and American and from the 19th and 20th centuries, who inherited vast wealth. Claiming that “it really is different for girls,” Thompson notes that until the late 19th century in England, a wife’s identity was “legally subsumed into that of her husband,” and he was entitled to her property and income. Later, when a woman’s money was “legally and incontestably” her own, many heiresses were still intensely vulnerable and led “godawful lives,” while others saw their wealth “as a responsibility worth having.” Thompson recounts the stories of Mary Davies, who lost control of her London estate after her husband’s death in 1700; Winnaretta Singer, daughter of sewing machine manufacturer Isaac Singer, who “inhabit the iconoclastic milieu of the avant garde” in late 19th-century Paris; and baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts, who partnered with Charles Dickens to rehabilitate impoverished schools and neighborhoods in Victorian England. Other profile subjects include kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, and Winnaretta Singer’s niece Daisy Fellowes, who “lived as a pure and unrepentant hedonist.” Skillfully evoking disparate social milieus and generational divides, Thompson packs the narrative full of juicy gossip without resorting to caricature. Readers will be enthralled. Agent: Georgina Capel, Georgina Capel Assoc.
-