While I have been hitting the historical fiction books fairly hard this winter (they are convenient for escaping my Covid symptoms for a bit), I have also read a few fantastic non-fiction history books, as well. We often hear about the heiress in reality and fiction, from Jane Austen’s many heiresses to Consuelo Vanderbilt to the faux-heiress, Anna Delvey. It sounds great, inheriting a pile of money without needing to do anything for it. However, the story isn’t quite as simple as that. Heiresses by Laura Thompson dives into the lives of heiresses and what they went through!
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an eARC and an Advanced Listening Copy of this book.
Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies, Laura Thompson
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 million dollar babies: 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; and Patty Hearst, heiress to a newspaper fortune who was arrested for terrorism. However, there are also stories of independence and 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; and 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 fulfillment.
Why You Should Read This…
I fully admit, this book is far darker than I expected (though I should have). Whenever a great deal of money is a possibility and the only “obstacle” in your way is a woman without rights, it will usually go poorly for the woman in question.
The book begins by looking at a number of famous heiresses, both real and fictional- I loved this choice. It made me stop and think about just how pervasive the trope of the heiress is in fiction, and how many real life heiresses there have been throughout the last few centuries.
While the entire book was fascinating to me, I found the chapter on American heiresses particularly interesting. We see these “dollar duchesses” a lot in historical fiction and period dramas- Cora from Downton, anyone? Thompson gives us a much more intimate look at their lives, their situations, and what they went through both in the US and Europe. I think being read in the wider context of the entire book, these dollar duchesses take on a wholly different tone for me.
Thompson narrated this book herself, and I thought she was a fantastic narrator. You typically only find celebrities narrating their own books, so this is a bit of an oddity, but in the best way. I found she vocally nailed the complexity and gravity of many of the situations she wrote about. I have to wonder if there is something to be said for an author being able to voice their own words, but in any case, I hope she continues to narrate.
This book is the perfect choice for anyone watching HBO’s The Gilded Age, or is (im)patiently waiting for Sanditon and Bridgerton to return!
Is Heiresses by Laura Thompson on your to-read list?
Cheers,
The Historian
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