A Season of Splendor: The Court of Mrs. Astor in Gilded Age New York [Hardcover]

Greg King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0470185694 | ISBN-13: 978-0470185698 | Edition: 1

Journey through the splendor and the excesses of the Gilded Age

"Every aspect of life in the Gilded Age took on deeper, transcendent meaning intended to prove the greatness of America: residences beautified their surroundings; works of art uplifted and were shared with the public; clothing exhibited evidence of breeding; jewelry testified to cultured taste and wealth; dinners demonstrated sophisticated palates; and balls rivaled those of European courts in their refinement. The message was unmistakable: the United States had arrived culturally, and Caroline Astor and her circle were intent on leading the nation to unimagined heights of glory."
—From A Season of Splendor

Take a dazzling journey through the Gilded Age, the period from roughly the 1870s to 1914, when bluebloods from older, established families met the nouveau riche headlong—railway barons, steel magnates, and Wall Street speculators—and forged an uneasy and glittering new society in New York City. The best of the best were Caroline Astor's 400 families, and she shaped and ruled this high society with steel.

A Season of Splendor is a panoramic sweep across this sumptuous landscape, presenting the families, the wealth, the balls, the clothing, and the mansions in vivid detail—as well as the shocking end of the era with the sinking of the Titanic.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

On January 1900, Caroline Astor greeted the new century with her annual Opera Ball. Dressed in a black velvet gown, she was draped with diamond necklaces and brooches and wore her famous diamond tiara—the jewels alone worth over $2.3 million in today's dollars. Her guests danced all night in her palatial ballroom, stopping only for a ten-course supper that included consommé, supr?eme de volaille, filet de boeuf, terrapin, duck croquettes, pa?té de foie gras, salade Orientale, and bonbons.

Small in stature, but as determined as ever to maintain the rigid social structure she established decades earlier, Mrs. Astor was every inch an American queen surveying her subjects: families whose wealth and power dominated New York City society for nearly forty years. Just fourteen years later it all came to a crashing end, first with the sinking of the Titanic and then the start of World War I. Caroline Astor would not live to see it.

A Season of Splendor takes you on a spectacular journey through this Gilded Age, the period from roughly the 1870s to 1914, when old-money bluebloods and patricians confronted the nouveau riche—railway barons, steel magnates, and Wall Street speculators—and forged an uneasy and dazzling new social order in New York City. Together, their extreme wealth, elaborate parties, marble mansions, shocking excesses, and delicious scandals transformed the social, architectural, and sartorial landscape.

Author Greg King places you in the heart of this glittering era. You'll meet the rich and famous—Astors, Vanderbilts, Belmonts, Goulds, and others—and tour sumptuous estates furnished with marble and silk and filled with antiques, tapestries, and European art. You'll sit at the table of lavish dinner parties that start with two soup courses (consommé and bisque) and include up to twelve more courses, plus sherry, wine, champagne, and liqueurs. You'll attend society balls, go yachting in Newport, buy dresses in Paris—and for everything, the more extravagant, the better.

"Money was poured out like water," one society lady recalled. "No one thought of the cost." But by the time parties began to include cigarettes rolled in hundred dollar bills, each stamped with the guest's initials in gold, or live elephants wandering from room to room in mansions to amuse the guests, even Caroline Astor was disillusioned by the excess. The Gilded Age—so named by Mark Twain to capture the essence of its avarice—was beginning to disintegrate from within. In A Season of Splendor, you'll discover all that was beguiling and appalling about this altogether extraordinary epoch.

About the Author

Greg King is the author of the British bestseller The Duchess of Windsor: The Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson as well as The Court of the Last Tsar, The Fate of the Romanovs, and Twilight of Splendor. He has appeared as an onscreen commentator for the BBC, the Discovery Channel, and A&E.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470185694
• ISBN-13: 978-0470185698
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource November 9, 2008

By Cherchezlafemme VINE™ VOICE

As the other review states, this book doesn't contain any new scholarship, however, King does an excellent and thorough job of recreating the period of American and New York history between the years 1880 and 1914. For those who have only a passing familiarity with the names Astor, Vanderbilt or Belmont, the fiction of Edith Wharton, and America's 19th century aristocracy, A SEASON OF SPLENDOR is a great starting place for research. Once you've consumed the bevy of names, fortunes and scandals this book entails, the bibliography is an even greater resource, since most of the books listed are available in your local library--though you may feel sated by King's unerring eye for detail. I highly recommend this book, as well as King's other works of social history.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great beginning-to-end summary of the Gilded Age December 29, 2008

By Ben

Overall this book provides an excellent summary of the Gilded Age in America, from its inception coinciding with the end of the Civil War and birth of the Industrial Revolution, through to its twilight years, corresponding with the sinking of the Titanic. The book focuses heavily on the wealthy residents of New York City (particularly the Astor and Vanderbilt families) and the world they inhabited.

While not encyclopedic (e.g., there's hardly any discussion about how the Gilded Age played out in areas outside of NYC), the author does a fantastic job of pulling together previously-published accounts of the Gilded Age together with a good deal of newer, more detailed facts and anecdotes to enhance the overall story. The chapters are relatively short which makes this thick book very approachable, while the very detailed bibliography and corresponding references accompanying each chapter are highly useful for those seeking additional detail, and give the book an almost textbook-like feel.

Additionally, the author factors in some insightful social-history commentary on the ramifications of all this excess (e.g., public outcry, institution of the Federal Income Tax). The parallels to the world we live in today (2008) are also interesting food for thought.

My only criticisms are (i) at times the descriptions are overly exhaustive and (ii) although there are a few black & white photographs, IMO the stories would have been significantly enhanced by color photos depicting some of the opulence the author goes to great pains to describe. Nonetheless, this is a five-star read.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A few pictures would paint 10,000 words. May 28, 2010

By Literata

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As others have said, it's a well written book with plenty of useful and interesting information. However, there is a noticeable lack of photos and pictures which can make wading through long written descriptions somewhat tedious. This is especially so in chapters that scream out for illustrations, eg, Jewelry.