Product Details

Beautiful Book Sensational and revealing memoir detailing the extravagant, highly stratified world of late 19th- and early 20th-century American high society. Written by socialite Elizabeth "Bessie" Drexel Lehr, the book exposes the glittering façade, rigid social maneuvering, and private miseries behind her marriage to Harry Lehr—a flamboyant society arbiter known as the "King" of New York and Newport high-life. Supplemented by 32 photographic illustrations and shocking extracts from Harry Lehr's locked personal diary, the memoir serves as both a fascinating historical document and a cautionary insider's critique of the excess, superficiality, and hidden tragedies of the Gilded Age.