Interesting reading - I actually originally wanted to read this because I enjoyed the Buccaneers mini-series (although I still need to read the actual book as well)

Got this book recommended to me by the History Chicks podcast - and it did not disappoint! I really wish more books were written and presented in the same way, because I'd LOVE to read a similar one about Tudor women or women at Louis XIV's court.

Very interesting.

I loved this book! It was an Anglophiles dream! The text was so informative and gave us not only a fun and snappy version of the time, but a great narrative into he lives and outcomes of these American women. The loads of pictures also made me so happy because I got a better sense of the time and as everyone knows I enjoy loads of pictures in my histories. In addition I liked the directory at the end which gave us brief profiles of the many women featured. It helped me to separate and remember who was who. Overall fantastic. One of the better histories I read lately! I'll be purchasing a copy for my own home library :)

Very amusingly written look at the wave of American heiresses marrying into the English aristocracy in the 19th century. A few too many details for my taste, especially about fashions, but interesting to read about how times changed high society on both sides of the Atlantic.

While informative and well-researched, this book could have done with a bit more editing and perhaps a different layout. The illustrations and insets were fascinating and added a lot of background that might otherwise have slowed things down or felt tacked-on, but the format meant I was constantly losing my place and having to reread sections.

Overall, this is a very good book that ties in well with the current interest in the rich and famous of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Just be prepared to take your time and bring your patience.

Lots of fun little tidbits about 'high society' in the 1890s-1910s. So many side notes and illustrations and things! This REALLY makes me want a Downton Abbey prequel, about how Cora came to England and met Lord Grantham and so on. IT WOULD BE SO GOOD!

This book isn't even worth the title of "book." I knew from the first look of the cover that this book would not be what I had expected from the title. The authors must have absolutely no historiographical training. The book is thrown together in a roughly chronological format. That is the only positive thing I can say about the book. The formatting is horrible. There are massive pictures on almost every page. If there's not a picture there's a bit of random information stuck on the page in the form of a box discussing a topic that the authors clearly could not get to fit into their "narrative." The authors survey far too many people and very rarely circle back to conclude their story. I could go on about a number of other things that these authors get horribly wrong but it just isn't worth the time. It took me barely an hour and a half to read this book, an hour and a half that I almost wish that I could have back.
I strongly recommend that everyone stay far, far away from this book. It's horrible.

This is an interesting book, but the information provided is very superficial and it jumps back and forth between topics often and abruptly.

Wow, until I looked up the publication date, I assumed this book was written to ride the recent wave of Downton Abbey popularity, considering that the mother in that show is an American heiress who married a titled Englishman in the late 19th century (real-life women like her are the focus of this book). But it appears to have been published 20+ years ago.

I wish I had read it a long time ago, too, before I ever picked up any Henry James or Edith Wharton. It gives such good background for the time period those authors' books take place in. If I were running a high school lit class that included any Wharton, etc., then this book would be excellent class material. The level is not too high and there are lots of pictures and callouts and graphs and boxed text. I've been reading this book off and on over the last six weeks - it's very easy to pick up, read a few sections, and then put down again for a while. It doesn't depend on a single narrative; rather, it's thematically organized and progresses according to the decades in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Anyway, interesting book. Now I can't wait to read The Age of Innocence and House of Mirth again.