Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age

“A dual life story that reads as pleasurably as the best fiction but with all the intelligence of a first-rate biography. . . . completely absorbing.”—Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

The granddaughter of the richest man in America, Consuelo Vanderbilt was the prize catch of New York Society. But her socially ambitious mother, Alva, was adamant that her daughter should make a grand marriage, and the underfunded Duke of Marlborough was just the thing—even though Con...