Embers of Childhood cover art

Embers of Childhood

Growing Up a Whitney

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Embers of Childhood

By: Flora Miller Biddle
Narrated by: Rosemary Benson
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A look into the privileged world of the American aristocracy of the early 20th century.

Flora Miller Biddle was born a blue-blood. The granddaughter of the Whitney museum founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her childhood played out in a sort of Wharton landscape as she was shielded from the woes of the world.

But money itself is not the source of happiness. Glimpses into the elegance of a Vanderbilt ball thrown by her great-grandparents and the yearly production of traveling from her childhood home on Long Island to their summer home in Aiken, South Carolina, are measured against memoires of strict governesses with stricter rules in a childhood separate from her parents, despite being in the same house, and the ever-present pressure to measure up in her studies and lessons. As Flora steps back in time to trace the origins of her family's fortune and where it stands today, she takes a discerning look at how wealth and excess shaped her life, for better and for worse.

In this wonderfully evocative memoir, Flora Miller Biddle examines, critiques, and pays homage to the people and places of her childhood that shaped her life.

©2011 Flora Miller Biddle (P)2021 Tantor
Entertainment & Celebrities Women Celebrity Money

Listeners also enjoyed...

Sinatra and the Jack Pack cover art
Born Ya cover art
The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis cover art
Sipping From the Nile cover art
Love the Dark Days cover art
One Hundred Summers cover art
Lala cover art
Daniel, at Sea cover art
To Sir, with Love cover art
The Girl Across the Sea cover art
Instant Karma cover art
The Accidental Duchess cover art
The Italian Matchmaker cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Lovely little memoir to listen to on a warm sunny day. Enjoyed it. Her life story.

Flora

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.