The paperback edition of Anne de Courcy’s insightful group biography THE HUSBAND HUNTERS is published today in paperback by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, following its release in hardback, ebook and audio in June 2017. Jane Ridley praised Anne’s exploration into the lives of the young American heiresses who married into the English aristocracy in The Spectator, as ‘cleverly researched, sparkling with diamonds and wickedly funny.’
US readers can expect hardback copies of the sparkling social history of the 'Dollar Princesses' in August.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century and for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, fifty years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known 'Dollar Princess', married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour and sophistication of the Gilded Age.
Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women and their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive first-hand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs and letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England - and what England thought of them.
Rights to Anne’s next project, CHANEL’S RIVIERA, have already been snapped up by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and St Martin’s Press. Exploring World War II’s impact on the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera, from the last golden fling of 1939 and the first Cannes Film Festival, which had to be suspended, to the first post-war festival of cinema, Anne de Courcy will tell another riveting tale, with its glossy motley crew, set against dark times. A fascinating cast includes Winston Churchill, the Windsors, Edith Wharton, Aldous Huxley, P.G. Wodehouse, Somerset Maugham, and of course Coco Chanel.
Anne de Courcy is a best-selling biographer, acclaimed for her first-hand research and engaging books, which not only tell the stories of her subjects’ lives, but depict the social history of the period. Her biographies include THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY, DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON. MARGOT AT WAR: LOVE AND BETRAYAL IN DOWNING STREET, 1912-1916 was shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political Book of the Year Award. THE FISHING FLEET spent many weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller list and has been optioned for film and TV, with rights to THE HUSBAND HUNTERS also under negotiation.
See more on Anne’s website here.
Praise for THE HUSBAND HUNTERS:
‘Anne de Courcy has a sharp instinct for absurdity and there is much of that in this entertaining book. De Courcy engagingly…takes a serious look at the differences between the largely matriarchal American upper-class society of the day, run by women, for women.’ —Anne Sebba, The Literary Review
Lively, shrewd and fresh as a gilded rose, de Courcy’s book is her best yet. I can’t wait to read it again.’ — Miranda Seymour, The Daily Telegraph
‘De Courcy charts these harbingers of the Gilded Age, their social mountaineering and the collateral damage that ensured with dexterous charm.’ — The Field
‘For all those who long for more Edith Wharton novels, Anne de Courcy’s THE HUSBAND HUNTERS is a worthy successor, especially as it is the true story of THE BUCCANEERS. Anne de Courcy’s thrilling prose, and fascinating diaries and letters of the period, means the story of the capitulation of British lords to 400 energetic American heiresses is impossible to put down.’ — Rebecca Fraser, author of THE MAYFLOWER
‘A sparkling and richly entertaining account of an intriguing and unusual culture clash.’ — The Mail on Sunday