To Marry an English Lord: Tales of Wealth and Marriage, Sex and Snobbery in the Gilded Age (An Inspiration for Downton Abbey)

From the Gilded Age until 1914, more than 100 American heiresses invaded Britannia and swapped dollars for titles--just like Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, the first of the Downton Abbey characters Julian Fellowes was inspired to create after reading To Marry An English Lord.

Marvelous and entertaining. Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey Discover the true stories behind the women who inspired DowntonAbbey and HBO s The Gilded Age, the heiresses including a Vanderbilt (railroads), a LaRoche (pharmaceuticals), and a Rogers (oil) who staked their ground in England, swapping dollars for titles and marrying peers of the British realm. Filled with vivid personalities, grand houses, dashing earls, and a wealth of period details and quotes on the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette, To Marry an English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible. Sex, snobbery, humor, social triumphs (and gaffes), are all recalled in marvelous detail, complete with parties, clothes, scandals, affairs, and 100-year-old gossip that s still scorching.