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mbenzz's review against another edition
5.0
I found this book to be incredibly interesting. I usually stick to the Tudor period when I read, but this book was recommended to me so I gave it a go...loved it! I knew next to nothing about this time period except that the social scene was run by an extremely rigid set of rules. I've been to Newport RI and driven down the beautiful Bellevue Ave lined with the magnificent mansions of the Gilded Age, but never took the time to read about any of their owners.
This book has certainly peaked my interest in this time period, and I've added to my reading list a bunch of other books pertaining to this era, including many of the works of Edith Wharton. I'm also thinking I may have to give Downton Abbey another go. I watched most of the first season via Netflix, but then never kept up with it. Now that I understand the dynamics of Victorian/Edwardian high society a little better, I may enjoy it more.
If you're at all interested in this time period, or are a fan of Downton Abbey, then I highly suggest reading this. Another reviewer put it absolutely perfectly when she said this book is a "...cross between a dynamic history book and a high-society gossip rag". Being written in the style that it is makes this a super easy read and at no time do you feel bogged down by all the names and families being mentioned (it CAN be a little confusing at first, especially if you're new to all these names I was, but you'll catch on). I'm so glad I stepped out of my comfort-zone to read this.
This book has certainly peaked my interest in this time period, and I've added to my reading list a bunch of other books pertaining to this era, including many of the works of Edith Wharton. I'm also thinking I may have to give Downton Abbey another go. I watched most of the first season via Netflix, but then never kept up with it. Now that I understand the dynamics of Victorian/Edwardian high society a little better, I may enjoy it more.
If you're at all interested in this time period, or are a fan of Downton Abbey, then I highly suggest reading this. Another reviewer put it absolutely perfectly when she said this book is a "...cross between a dynamic history book and a high-society gossip rag". Being written in the style that it is makes this a super easy read and at no time do you feel bogged down by all the names and families being mentioned (it CAN be a little confusing at first, especially if you're new to all these names I was, but you'll catch on). I'm so glad I stepped out of my comfort-zone to read this.
purplepierogi's review against another edition
3.0
interesting tidbits! bizarre formatting! it was like they had too many little quippy titles so they put a title on each page or two? so the book is many, many divisions. I did enjoy the photos, it really adds to understanding the scope of the finery and fashion. as a leftist, of course, the extravagance boiled my blood. just forget everything you know about imperialism, slavery, exploitation under captains of industry for this read to enjoy the little anecdotes.
ameyawarde's review against another edition
3.0
The author's flowery language often seems like she's making a lot of assumptions and adding a lot of details she couldn't possibly know... unless it was mentioned in a private letter or diary, in which case, source plz. It's a good book on the subject with a lot of information, but I wish it had been liberally sourced, like many other books of this type are, and that she used terms like "probably" or "likely" more when she wanted to add colorful detail, instead of just fluffing things up to seem more interesting but really just making me question even more of the book as to what is strictly true and what is poetic license.
avreereads's review against another edition
2.0
A FRUSTRATING READ!
(NOTE: I wanted to LOVE this book...I really did!)
The motivation to try and finish this book in 1 week kept me begrudgingly reaching for it...let me explain...
You know the saying that something "has good bones"?...well the issue with this book is...it doesn't have "bones".
Now what I mean by that is the structure, layout, readability was all wrong. There were constant paragraph and page interruptions. For example: you'll be reading a page and a sentence looks like it'll continue on the next page but instead when you flip the page you find a two page "segment" with minuscule text going off on a tangent about a seemingly unrelated topic (riddled with tiny, blurry photos) from what you're currently reading about...so you take your finger to hold a place marker to remind yourself to go back and read this two page "segment" after you follow through going to the page beyond that to meet up with where you were just left hanging. So now it's time to go back to...not just the "segment" page but to the previous page that your paragraph was connected to to now backtrack and read all the captions of all the photos and marginal notes you missed...then you read the "new segment" pages and THEN you try to resume reading the regular book content...sounds like a lot of interruptions doesn't it?! Well that is the nature of the ENTIRE book! Hence why I state it's a "frustrating read".
The other issue of note is: so many names are being thrown at you and in such tiny detail at a time and then they mention that person 20 times throughout the book and you feel responsible for trying to stitch the entire random 20 facts together but you find it so confusing that that person means absolutely nothing to you while learning about them and I just knew that wherever I left off I wasn't going to remember the previous tidbits I had read over the previous days and would fail at trying to tie them together with the new ones I was about to receive...so I felt like I was just shallowly reading the information.
I was under the impression that the book was going to devote a chapter to each of the more "famous" American Heiresses. Having all these tidbits about dozens of ladies strewn haphazardly all throughout the book left you feeling like you didn't learn anything about a one of them because you essentially get them all mixed up and can't keep the "who's who" straight.
What's irritating is this book has some good meat...though it lacks the bones...but the way it was ultimately assembled was very unfortunate.
I love history and especially non-fiction! But this was such a jumbled mess that I took down the names of the more interesting individuals mentioned and may pursue reading a book about that particular person in the future.
I also wish this book just had a picture section that made sense...not photos of various sizes collaged on a page. Some were so small I couldn't really appreciate who or what I was looking at. But I will say I did appreciate the sheer amount of pictures in this book because I love the Victorian/Edwardian eras and this was a feast for the eyes!
Also, some of the information helped me to understand the situation surrounding Downton Abbey's Cora Crawley and the Earl of Grantham much more...so that was appreciated. I also loved all the details about Edward VII all throughout the book and that was one of the more solidifying elements to the book.
Had the layout been much different and the pictures and tiny marginal notes not interrupting the readability of the book content and had there been a better arrangement for pooling all the information about a given person into one place...I think this book could have been very informative and pleasant.
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading it per se but I just wish I had been warned of the frustrating nature of the book as that may have swayed me from choosing it when I had because I wish I would have saved this book when I had more time to devote to taking it very slowly.
(NOTE: I wanted to LOVE this book...I really did!)
The motivation to try and finish this book in 1 week kept me begrudgingly reaching for it...let me explain...
You know the saying that something "has good bones"?...well the issue with this book is...it doesn't have "bones".
Now what I mean by that is the structure, layout, readability was all wrong. There were constant paragraph and page interruptions. For example: you'll be reading a page and a sentence looks like it'll continue on the next page but instead when you flip the page you find a two page "segment" with minuscule text going off on a tangent about a seemingly unrelated topic (riddled with tiny, blurry photos) from what you're currently reading about...so you take your finger to hold a place marker to remind yourself to go back and read this two page "segment" after you follow through going to the page beyond that to meet up with where you were just left hanging. So now it's time to go back to...not just the "segment" page but to the previous page that your paragraph was connected to to now backtrack and read all the captions of all the photos and marginal notes you missed...then you read the "new segment" pages and THEN you try to resume reading the regular book content...sounds like a lot of interruptions doesn't it?! Well that is the nature of the ENTIRE book! Hence why I state it's a "frustrating read".
The other issue of note is: so many names are being thrown at you and in such tiny detail at a time and then they mention that person 20 times throughout the book and you feel responsible for trying to stitch the entire random 20 facts together but you find it so confusing that that person means absolutely nothing to you while learning about them and I just knew that wherever I left off I wasn't going to remember the previous tidbits I had read over the previous days and would fail at trying to tie them together with the new ones I was about to receive...so I felt like I was just shallowly reading the information.
I was under the impression that the book was going to devote a chapter to each of the more "famous" American Heiresses. Having all these tidbits about dozens of ladies strewn haphazardly all throughout the book left you feeling like you didn't learn anything about a one of them because you essentially get them all mixed up and can't keep the "who's who" straight.
What's irritating is this book has some good meat...though it lacks the bones...but the way it was ultimately assembled was very unfortunate.
I love history and especially non-fiction! But this was such a jumbled mess that I took down the names of the more interesting individuals mentioned and may pursue reading a book about that particular person in the future.
I also wish this book just had a picture section that made sense...not photos of various sizes collaged on a page. Some were so small I couldn't really appreciate who or what I was looking at. But I will say I did appreciate the sheer amount of pictures in this book because I love the Victorian/Edwardian eras and this was a feast for the eyes!
Also, some of the information helped me to understand the situation surrounding Downton Abbey's Cora Crawley and the Earl of Grantham much more...so that was appreciated. I also loved all the details about Edward VII all throughout the book and that was one of the more solidifying elements to the book.
Had the layout been much different and the pictures and tiny marginal notes not interrupting the readability of the book content and had there been a better arrangement for pooling all the information about a given person into one place...I think this book could have been very informative and pleasant.
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading it per se but I just wish I had been warned of the frustrating nature of the book as that may have swayed me from choosing it when I had because I wish I would have saved this book when I had more time to devote to taking it very slowly.
erboe501's review against another edition
5.0
Any Downton Abbey fan worth his or her salt would salivate at the chance to understand the backstories of the real women who inspired Downton’s popular character Lady Grantham. And so, my mom and I drove south toward the gulf as the lives of past American heiresses unfolded before us.
Before listening to this book, all I knew about the hordes of American women who married into the British aristocracy was that hordes of American women married into the British aristocracy. This I ascertained from Downton Abbey. Cora, the lady of Downton, traded her American money for an English title that saved the abbey from bankruptcy. As I learned during the 7.5 hours to NOLA, her character reflects the personal trajectory of many American heiresses at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.
In the 1870s and 1880s, many British aristocrats needed millions to restore their family estates, and the American nouveau riche needed eligible matches for their daughters outside New York’s mercilessly exclusive social circles. Wily American mothers realized that their fresh-faced, vivacious (and filthy rich) daughters had better prospects across the pond, where Prince Bertie (eldest son of Queen Victoria), worshipped beautiful women, and so supported the American girls in their matrimonial enterprises.
One such match between an American heiress and British Lord produced Winston Churchill (how many people know that one of Britain’s most famous Prime Ministers was half American?).
I never realized that, before this glamorous American invasion, British-American relations were not at the level of amicability we enjoy today. The Revolutionary War and War of 1812 were still recent history in the 1870s, and the U.S. had yet to become its own Imperial power. The American women who married into the British aristocracy, and later helped many of their husbands campaign for political office, fostered friendship between the two nations.
Although American enthusiasm for these transatlantic marriages waned in the 1900s–as Americans took issue with the loss of American fortunes to support British aristocrats’ whims and debts–the height of the trend in the 1890s sounded so dazzling and so over the top I can hardly believe the details. MacColl and Wallace did such a splendid job of describing the society women’s balls that the amount of detail devoted to the ladies’ dresses even tired me! The wealth of some Americans astounds me: one lady wore the jewels of Marie Antoinette to compliment her French costume, while another wore Catherine the Great’s precious stones to a costume ball.
As we drove toward a city renowned for its own extravagant parties, my mom and I thoroughly enjoyed imagining another era of American extravagance, epitomized by 55-carat diamond crowns and mink coats rather than plastic tiaras and hot pink boas.
Before listening to this book, all I knew about the hordes of American women who married into the British aristocracy was that hordes of American women married into the British aristocracy. This I ascertained from Downton Abbey. Cora, the lady of Downton, traded her American money for an English title that saved the abbey from bankruptcy. As I learned during the 7.5 hours to NOLA, her character reflects the personal trajectory of many American heiresses at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.
In the 1870s and 1880s, many British aristocrats needed millions to restore their family estates, and the American nouveau riche needed eligible matches for their daughters outside New York’s mercilessly exclusive social circles. Wily American mothers realized that their fresh-faced, vivacious (and filthy rich) daughters had better prospects across the pond, where Prince Bertie (eldest son of Queen Victoria), worshipped beautiful women, and so supported the American girls in their matrimonial enterprises.
One such match between an American heiress and British Lord produced Winston Churchill (how many people know that one of Britain’s most famous Prime Ministers was half American?).
I never realized that, before this glamorous American invasion, British-American relations were not at the level of amicability we enjoy today. The Revolutionary War and War of 1812 were still recent history in the 1870s, and the U.S. had yet to become its own Imperial power. The American women who married into the British aristocracy, and later helped many of their husbands campaign for political office, fostered friendship between the two nations.
Although American enthusiasm for these transatlantic marriages waned in the 1900s–as Americans took issue with the loss of American fortunes to support British aristocrats’ whims and debts–the height of the trend in the 1890s sounded so dazzling and so over the top I can hardly believe the details. MacColl and Wallace did such a splendid job of describing the society women’s balls that the amount of detail devoted to the ladies’ dresses even tired me! The wealth of some Americans astounds me: one lady wore the jewels of Marie Antoinette to compliment her French costume, while another wore Catherine the Great’s precious stones to a costume ball.
As we drove toward a city renowned for its own extravagant parties, my mom and I thoroughly enjoyed imagining another era of American extravagance, epitomized by 55-carat diamond crowns and mink coats rather than plastic tiaras and hot pink boas.
librarian_of_valencia's review against another edition
4.0
This book was a fun listen. It mostly follows the stories of various American girls who went to England and married English nobility, using these stories to talk about the different waves of young women who came over and the differing social, political, and personal reasons and influences behind their decisions.
There were occasional asides in the narrative which were hard to follow. From what I understand based on other reviews and a quick glance through the physical book, these are different informational sections inserted on pages next to the main narrative of the text in book, but they caused some confusion in listening to the audiobook (though not significant confusion).
I would certainly recommend at least getting and looking through a copy of the physical book if you choose to listen to this in audio since the physical book does include photographs, news snippets, and other bits of information which are visual and cannot/do not transfer to the audio medium.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed listening to this. It was well narrated, and the stories were interesting.
There were occasional asides in the narrative which were hard to follow. From what I understand based on other reviews and a quick glance through the physical book, these are different informational sections inserted on pages next to the main narrative of the text in book, but they caused some confusion in listening to the audiobook (though not significant confusion).
I would certainly recommend at least getting and looking through a copy of the physical book if you choose to listen to this in audio since the physical book does include photographs, news snippets, and other bits of information which are visual and cannot/do not transfer to the audio medium.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed listening to this. It was well narrated, and the stories were interesting.
suannelaqueur's review against another edition
4.75
For those who enjoy this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they will enjoy. I love this sort of thing and enjoyed it very much. Tea?
krobart's review against another edition
3.0
See my review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/to-marry-an-English-lord
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/to-marry-an-English-lord
algae429's review against another edition
4.0
It was interesting, but definitely a light read and I thought it simply glossed over a lot of details. It also made it sound as if hordes of American misses were swarming London's High Society, and then later refer to 10 or so matrons banding together as American sisters to do something.