When the Astors Owned New York by Justin Kaplan

'If you've ever wondered about the real life models for Henry James' American novels or Merchant-Ivory's films, this is the book for you. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America and Vera (Mrs. There could be no better guide to that new-fangled l9th century invention: American ostentation. 'In velvet prose, Justin Kaplan offers up a family drama that played itself out in the national headlines and the New York skyline. Megan Marshall, author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism Kaplan's latest achievement is a tour-de-force, brimming with the vitality of its subject.' He recounts the Astor family's 'ventures in the ideal,' as well as their bitter feuds and brushes with scandal, with the economical style and wry wit that marked his Pulitzer-winning biographies of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. Justin Kaplan gives us a slice of Manhattan's history that reaches across three centuries, and offers fascinating glimpses of what Henry James has called the 'perfect human felicity' of 'hotel-civilization.' Indeed, no one since James has written with such ease and grace about the era of excess as Kaplan.

' When the Astors Owned New York is a gem of a book by one of our foremost biographers. Robert R Richardson, author of Henry Thoreau: A life of the Mind and Emerson: The Mind on Fire An immensely satisfying read-impossible to put down. Writer his prose shines with clarity and crackles with wicked wit. This is a grand book on a grand subject-the era of the great hotels and the family that created that 'vision of extravagance, grandeur, amplitude, order, and efficiency.' Kaplan is a superb 'The Astors may have owned New York, but Justin Kaplan owns the Astors. Advance praise for WHEN THE ASTORS OWNED NEW YORK, by Justin Kaplan

When the Astors Owned New York by Justin Kaplan