Exploring the Transatlantic Love Stories of American Heiresses and British Aristocrats: The Husband Hunters

Allison: Arrived timely and packaged well in waterproof bag. Book in very good shape. Have not yet read it so will comment on story later.

United States on Apr 21, 2023

pburton: I like that I recognized names from the show the gilded age but I could have done with out so much description of the Worth dresses Interesting comparisons between English and American social lives

United States on Jun 08, 2022

Kelley Ridings: What a great book! Anne de Courcy has written a wonderful history of 19th century American mega-heiresses who crossed the pond in search titled husbands. There were 102 such brides who married British peers between 1870 and 1914. The noblemen/grooms typically were impoverished and desperately searching for cash infusions to save their debt-ridden estates. Most of these marriages were unsuccessful though some were happy. Usually American brides were free-spirited, and well educated, quite different than their subdued English and European counterparts, hence they were exotic by comparison and desirable (though their money surely was the biggest factor spotlighting their charm). Yet they found themselves strangers in strange lands still adjusting to customs, even after 50 years of living there, often with intense unhappiness.

I learned a lot from this book. de Courcey has an engaging writing style, capturing the essence of many different heiresses in her many biographical essays. My single small issue was her complex sentences detailing relationships between the various actors. So many were in some sentences it was impossible to decipher all the names and match them with...

United States on Apr 17, 2021

Michelle: This book is such a great read. Written in an engaging style, it's not dry but rather makes these women come to life.

Canada on Mar 03, 2021

suzy hallock-bannigan: This is a fun read; for me, I was inspired of course by Jennie Churchill, Sir Winston’s mum, who was a member of this category and happily, de Courcey calls her the pioneer of the Gilded Age brides. Jennie is the “stunningly gorgeous” daughter of Wall Street financier Leonard Jerome. She was also a fashionista of her day, never known to compromise on her clothes, and in various letters written by Gilded Age brides, they describe their clothes, what they wore where and when, at great length. Dresses were expensive (especially the ones made by Worth) and the maids were employed to look after the clothes, although many women only wore a frock once in society....or, if more often, would have changeable collars and cuffs. Ruffles absorbed most of the dirt and soil and could easily be replaced so a dress would look new. Ladies arrived at grand houses for long weekends—-sometimes they would have as many as 100 trunks. Many were groomed for this particular destiny, and they, as American girls, were quite at ease conversationally with men—-somewhat different from British women of the day. Affairs were understood to be typical, travel, horses, house parties, shooting parties,...

United States on Dec 17, 2020

Yomiryam -- Practising Catholic, Proud Jew: Well-written book about the Gilded Age, especially about the most well-known families.

Canada on Nov 04, 2020

Amazon Customer: I have read most of Anne de Courcy's books and enjoyed them. She writes well and researches carefully. However, this is my least favourite of all her books. The extravagance and selfish displays of the 'elite' New Yorkers become rather sickening and in fact, unusually for me, I never finished this book. Impossible to admire the lavish dinners and parties when so many immigrants were living in such abject misery on the lower East Side.
It contrasts quite sharply with her 'Fishing Fleet'. Generally those women were seeking a husband in India because their position in England, probably quite genteel but with few resources made it imperative to find a mate if they were not to have a life of poverty or existing as a barely tolerated 'poor relation' in another woman's house.

Canada on Sep 08, 2020

august1229: I got to this somehow from Downton Abbey, as it is about American heiresses who married titled Englishmen, like Cora, Lady Crawley. It worked out because the man had a large estate to maintain but not cash and the American heiress had a lot of cash and a social climbing appreciation for the title.

There are portraits of several of the women and descriptions of the society of the era in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In America, men made money and women spent it and ruled the social system in the era of conspicuous consumption. If you were not a part of the top 400 families recognized by Mrs. Astor, your goal was to get in. For example, the exploits of Mrs. Stevens and Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt got them in and are fun to read about.

It inspired me to read The Age of Innocence, which contains some not too disguised portrayals of some of these ladies. By this time, the amount of snobbery and social climbing is kind of amusing. And of course, money is no object. The author describes the way they spent it in those days, to show how rich they were - balls with tons of flowers, yachts, big houses in Newport, trips to Europe and the UK, and of course, clothes and...

United States on Oct 10, 2019