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tessisreading2's review against another edition
The book started out as not-quite-overwritten and rapidly crossed that particular bar. “An heiress! The very word sounds light, golden, aeolian.” Oh come on, you pulled out your synonym dictionary for that one.
The introduction gives us a rundown of heiresses throughout (English, very occasionally American) literature, but jumps from Jane Austen to Henry James to Nancy Mitford without any real acknowledgment of the totally different time periods they're describing; Thompson also insists, at length, on the exceptionalism of "heiresses" as compared to "heirs," e.g. that a young man in particular sad-heiress straits “would never have been described as an ‘heir’” in newspaper headlines - a statement I suspect is totally incorrect. (A search of headlines for "Getty heir," for example, turns up plenty.) It’s confirmation bias at work - she was only reading headlines about heiresses, so she insists that the only headlines were about heiresses - but it's sloppy research.
I suppose it's a useful introduction to the tone of the book, I guess, in that it tells us straight off that there’s not going to be a lot of very deep research or fact development here. The tone is very blithe and chatty but it's so blithely authoritative about things she couldn't possibly have known (e.g. someone's unrecorded motivations for doing something) that it makes me cringe a little. (Additionally, the author seems at one point to be making the argument that heiresses in the nineteenth century were worse off than poor women because their husbands controlled all heiresses’ money whereas poor women didn’t have any money in the first place which… I mean, it’s a take. Not a good one, but it is a take.)
Once I’d made it through the introduction, however, in the first chapter Thompson uses the analogy that a conversion to Catholicism was “as seismic a choice as if the spouse of a prominent Jew had declared their support for Hitler.” Oh. I see. I can’t help but think that perhaps Thompson spent too much time writing about the Mitfords to understand that this analogy is actually offensive rather than lightly cheeky, particularly as a totally unnecessary aside. This in turn sent me on a rabbit hole to check reviews of her Mitford book, several of which indicated that she seems to "hero worship" Diana Moseley. That was all the permission I needed to put this book down halfway through chapter one and strike her off any future reading lists. I don't know, maybe this will work for someone else but it certainly did not for me.
The introduction gives us a rundown of heiresses throughout (English, very occasionally American) literature, but jumps from Jane Austen to Henry James to Nancy Mitford without any real acknowledgment of the totally different time periods they're describing; Thompson also insists, at length, on the exceptionalism of "heiresses" as compared to "heirs," e.g. that a young man in particular sad-heiress straits “would never have been described as an ‘heir’” in newspaper headlines - a statement I suspect is totally incorrect. (A search of headlines for "Getty heir," for example, turns up plenty.) It’s confirmation bias at work - she was only reading headlines about heiresses, so she insists that the only headlines were about heiresses - but it's sloppy research.
I suppose it's a useful introduction to the tone of the book, I guess, in that it tells us straight off that there’s not going to be a lot of very deep research or fact development here. The tone is very blithe and chatty but it's so blithely authoritative about things she couldn't possibly have known (e.g. someone's unrecorded motivations for doing something) that it makes me cringe a little. (Additionally, the author seems at one point to be making the argument that heiresses in the nineteenth century were worse off than poor women because their husbands controlled all heiresses’ money whereas poor women didn’t have any money in the first place which… I mean, it’s a take. Not a good one, but it is a take.)
Once I’d made it through the introduction, however, in the first chapter Thompson uses the analogy that a conversion to Catholicism was “as seismic a choice as if the spouse of a prominent Jew had declared their support for Hitler.” Oh. I see. I can’t help but think that perhaps Thompson spent too much time writing about the Mitfords to understand that this analogy is actually offensive rather than lightly cheeky, particularly as a totally unnecessary aside. This in turn sent me on a rabbit hole to check reviews of her Mitford book, several of which indicated that she seems to "hero worship" Diana Moseley. That was all the permission I needed to put this book down halfway through chapter one and strike her off any future reading lists. I don't know, maybe this will work for someone else but it certainly did not for me.
mbkarapcik's review against another edition
3.0
If you've ever been fascinated by the incredibly and achingly wealthy, this book may be up your alley. Heiresses by Laura Thompson covers heiresses from varied time periods, starting out from the 1600s up to more contemporary times. You meet up with Barbara Hutton and Patty Hearst as well as Daisy Fellowes, the Vanderbilts, and many others I never really knew about.
You may think an heiress has an easy time with all the money, power, suitors, and more that come her way, but you would be very wrong. Throughout the book, you witness firsthand how an heiress can live a tortured existence for many reasons, including unforgiving and uncaring relatives, rogue lovers and fortune hunters, plus kidnappings, forced marriages, and so many other horrific issues. In fact, it's brought up that one of the women could have been happy if she never even had half of her fortune.
An amazing amount of research went into this book, which should be applauded. I appreciated the demystification of the suffering that heiresses continue to experience. You learn--if you didn't understand this already--that money is not a blessing in many of the true life stories.
While I found it interesting to read, it's so dense with material and people that it was hard to keep track of them all and their relationships and relatives. I needed a family tree or more definition between the heiresses because, it seemed, that much of it overlapped. At times, it could be slow as well.
The epilogue felt like it could have consisted of more of a wrap-up. Plus, the most modern heiresses covered reigned in the 1970s like Patty Hearst, for example. I think I would have liked coverage of more contemporary heiresses and luminaries although Megan Markle is mentioned very briefly at a few points.
Thank you St. Martin’s Press for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! It was a pleasure!
You may think an heiress has an easy time with all the money, power, suitors, and more that come her way, but you would be very wrong. Throughout the book, you witness firsthand how an heiress can live a tortured existence for many reasons, including unforgiving and uncaring relatives, rogue lovers and fortune hunters, plus kidnappings, forced marriages, and so many other horrific issues. In fact, it's brought up that one of the women could have been happy if she never even had half of her fortune.
An amazing amount of research went into this book, which should be applauded. I appreciated the demystification of the suffering that heiresses continue to experience. You learn--if you didn't understand this already--that money is not a blessing in many of the true life stories.
While I found it interesting to read, it's so dense with material and people that it was hard to keep track of them all and their relationships and relatives. I needed a family tree or more definition between the heiresses because, it seemed, that much of it overlapped. At times, it could be slow as well.
The epilogue felt like it could have consisted of more of a wrap-up. Plus, the most modern heiresses covered reigned in the 1970s like Patty Hearst, for example. I think I would have liked coverage of more contemporary heiresses and luminaries although Megan Markle is mentioned very briefly at a few points.
Thank you St. Martin’s Press for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! It was a pleasure!