The riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family as they rule Gilded-Age New York, from the New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Alva Smith, her southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America's great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Ignored by New York's old-money circles and determined to win respect, she designed and built...

Lucius Beebe said that "The nearest thing to a royal family that has ever appeared on the American scene was the Vanderbilt's their vendettas, their armies of servitors, partisans and sycophants, their love affairs, scandals, and shortcomings, all were the stuff of an imperial routine."Stasz reveals new facts and insights into the fascinating lives of three generations of Vanderbilt women who dominated New York society from the middle of the eighteenth...

Anderson Cooper chronicles the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty--his mother's family--the Vanderbilts. "[A]uthor and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with...historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty--his mother's family, the Vanderbilts. When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father's small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of...

Showcases several fabulous homes built by legends America's wealthiest tycoons, combining architectural, cultural and biographical commentary. Estates included are Beechwood and Cliveden (the Astors), the castle shared by Consuelo Vanderbilt and the Duke of Marlborough, Skibo (Andrew Carnegie), Chateau Sur Mer (two Vanderbilt brothers), The Breakers (Cornelius and Alice Vanderbilt), and Marble House (William and Alva Vanderbilt).