TO MARRY AN ENGLISH LORD

Sub-titled 'Tales of Wealth and Marriage, Sex and Snobbery in the Gilded Age' here is a mass of historical research into more than 100 American heiresses who married English nobles, invading Britannia and swapping dollars for titles. Filled with fact boxes and personality characteristics, archive photos, columns of facts and nuggets of gossip and information, here are the historical personalities, grand houses, gossipy anecdotes and the very finest points of etiquette that ruled Victorian and Edwardian societies. In 1895, nine American girls including a Vanderbilt (railroads), LaRoche (pharmaceuticals), Rogers (oil) and Whitney (New York Trolly Buses), married English peers of the realm, among them a duke, an earl, three barons and a knight. It was a peak year of a social phenomenon that began in the Gilded Age after the American Civil War, and handed down the legacy of Anglomania, preppies, and the world of the television series Downton Abbey. Here are over 100 matches that were made between these American ladies and English noblemen, old New Yorkers at home on Washington Square, THE Mrs Astor, making their homes in Berkeley Square, the London Season, those on the outside wanting in, sporting men and Wall Street, the big showdowns, the genius of clothes, Queen Victoria's court, Miss Daisy Miller, rating a mate in case he was a poor peer, the self-made girl's wedding, the Princess Diana connection, Jennie Jerome later Lady Randolph Churchill, here is all the glitter and the gold, the upstairs and downstairs, the Devonshire House Ball, curtseys and hanging offences. Packed with photos and other illus. in a jazzy design, 403 page large paperback.