Consuelo Vanderbilt was the most glamorous of the American heiresses to come to England and marry a duke, but for her the fairy tale ended in divorce and disillusion. Amanda Mackenzie Stuart has written a joint biography of Consuelo and her mother Alva which is a fascinating study of the super-rich of the Gilded Age.

Consuelo’s marriage to the Duke of Marlborough was a brilliantly engineered coup of social climbing. It was all the work of her mother. Alva was the daughter of a slave-owning Southern businessman who lost his fortune after the Civil War. Being brought up with slaves stamped her character for life;

Jul 2005

Just a Straightforward Shooting Weekend

Prime Ministers & Paupers

Heavy Lies the Crown

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Queen

England’s Empire Style Interiors

He Loved Germany Too Much

Liberal Habitats

Prime Minister’s Pet

Full of Heirs and Graces

Going Jungly

Wanderlust

Rex Whistler Painted Her Hall

Hythe Society

Grand Dame of Downing Street

Treachery at the Palace

From the Sewers

Knole Me Tangere

Passage from India

Building Jerusalem in the Home Countries

Where’s Wallis?

Welfare & Warfare

Woman in Black

Winds of Change

Unhappy Valley

Eminence Rose

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