Ladies
and Not-So-Gentle Women by Alfred Allan Lewis
Born
into New York City's Victorian aristocracy and destined for the
constricted lives considered proper for genteel women, the ladies
and not-so-gentle women of this book invented new, more fulfilling
identities for themselves with all-American aplomb. Bessy Marbury
(1856-1933) was a pioneering play agent who fostered the careers
of such scandalous writers as Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw.
Her longtime companion, Elsie de Wolfe (1858-1950), virtually
invented the field of interior decorating, making her name by
refining the tastes of the rich. Anne Morgan (1873-1952), who
began a passionate affair with Marbury in 1904, used her
privileged position as J.P. Morgan's daughter to forcefully
advocate the rights of working women; Morgan's close friend Anne
Harriman Vanderbilt (1859-1940) surmounted such personal sorrows
as the premature deaths of two husbands and a daughter's mental
illness by devoting herself to charitable work on behalf of drug
addicts, prisoners, and soldiers. Veteran nonfiction author Alfred
Allan Lewis deftly juggles the interlocking stories of these
remarkable women (and just about every famous name in New York
society, the feminist movement, the theater, and American
government at the time) in an atmospheric narrative studded with
shrewd character sketches and colorful anecdotes. He creates an
enjoyable group portrait of the four trailblazers, "neither
rabble rousers nor conformists, [but] pragmatists who helped to
adapt revolutionary principles in ways that made them palatable to
the public." --Wendy Smith
