This book inspired both Downton Abbey and one of my favorite podcasts, The History Chicks, so I knew I had to pick it up. What I got was a frothy, chatty, detailed account of how American heiresses and down-and-out British nobility formed marital alliances en masse throughout the late 1800s. The many illustrations and gossipy details are fun, and I like the tongue-in-cheek writing style. 

I guess I was looking for a little more, though? Maybe it was because this book was published in 1989 and I’m reading in 2022, but I sometimes wished the book would be a little more critical of these sumptuous lifestyles, or at least address the effects these magnates’ ridiculous spending had on the people they overworked and underpaid. I also would have liked a little more time spent on individual stories; I honestly prefer the History Chicks episode on Gilded Age heiresses for this reason. You can only hear “and here’s what they are for dinner” so many times before you start to yawn a little, or at least, I can.