THE DOLLAR PRINCESSES

by Ruth Brandon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 1980

Consuelo Vanderbilt Marlborough, Mary Leiter Curzon, Anna Gould de Castel-lane, et al.--Old World pawns or New World pioneers? In a second stylish, witty, astute social history, the author of A Capitalist Romance: Singer and the Sewing Machine (1977) takes over where Henry James left off, seeing in the American heiresses who married European aristocrats much more than the exchange of Papa's money for a fancy title. True, Consuelo Vanderbilt, in love with another, wept on her wedding day. True, Mary Leiter, the belle of Washington, was lonely during her first, sequestered years as Lady Curzon. True, Boni de Castellane was openly unfaithful to Anna and went through her money. But Anna divorced Boni, to the horror of his proper French family; and far from returning chastened to America, promptly wed another French aristocrat. Mary Curzon, her adored husband's right-hand, blossomed as Vicereine of India. Consuelo Marlborough, propelled from an unhappy marriage into public life, won a seat on the London County Council--no small thanks to her ""American ability to disregard class and communicate easily with all."" Still, Mmes. Curzon and Marlborough (and their contemporary, Jenny Churchill) rode to success on their husbands' coattails. Not so Maud Burke--of dubious West-Coast parentage, no great wealth, and many protectors--who married the man selected by her staunchest admirer, George Moore (or so he claimed); and as Lady Emerald Cunard presided for some 30 years over London's most glittering salon. Only an American, Brandon notes, would have had the determination, the temerity, and the opportunity (without being dismissed as an adventuress) to scramble to the top of the social heap. And, while savoring Emerald's buoyancy, Brandon strives to be fair to her counterpart and antagonist Nancy Langhorne Astor, the acidulous, high-handed Virginia-born beauty--married to the eldest son of expatriate millionaire William Waldorf Astor--who was London's reigning political hostess, Britain's first woman MP, and doyenne of the notorious, Nazi-tinged ""Cliveden set."" But Brandon's portraits of the individual women and their milieux are never more subtle and acute than when she turns, surprisingly, to the American-led lesbian society of early 20th-century Paris--the domain of Gertrude Stein, Natalie Barney, and the Princess de Polignac, nÉe Winaretta Singer. Why these advanced women became lesbians, what Paris had to offer them, and the remarkable personal histories of the predatory Barney and the happily-married Princess--together these bring the narrative to an arresting close. ""Daisy Miller,"" Brandon observes, ""may have paid for her boldness by dying of the Roman fever--but would a more interesting fate have awaited her had she gone back to Utica?"" A splendid book--scholarship with panache.

Pub Date: Oct. 20, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION