Heiresses cover art

Heiresses

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Heiresses

By: Laura Thompson
Narrated by: Laura Thompson
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £17.99

Buy Now for £17.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
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 razor-sharp, beautifully written survey of the world of the wealthy heiress - glittering and gleaming, flawed and fascinating - from the 17th to the 21st century.

We fantasise about what we would do if we inherited a fortune: the house on Cheyne Walk? The Manolo Blahniks? The racehorses? But what would it be like, never to have to dream in that way?

Laura Thompson explores the historical phenomenon of the heiress in four inviting categories. First, the Estate Builders, women like Elizabeth Sloan, whose father Sir Hans owned the land that is now Chelsea. The Patrons - those heiresses who tried to do something with their money - feature Winnaretta Singer, inheritor of the sewing-machine fortune, whose salon in Paris showcased work by Debussy, Fauré and Ravel. Party Girls enjoy their money without shame or conscience. After the death of hostess Ronnie Greville, high-living illegitimate daughter of a Scottish brewer death, 286 bottles of Bollinger 1928 were discovered in her Mayfair home. The Rebels include Alice Silverthorne, who walked her black panther along the Promenade des Anglais and shot her lover in the stomach at the Gare du Nord.

A famous heiress once said: 'Life is less sad with money.' It should be true. But is it? Laura Thompson's Heiresses takes the listener on a sparklingly enlightening search for the answer.

©2021 Laura Thompson (P)2021 W F Howes Historical Women France

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Noble Ambitions cover art
Vanderbilt cover art
Three Times a Countess cover art
Astor cover art
The Fascination of What's Difficult cover art
Cecil Beaton cover art
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1) cover art
Jackie cover art
Mad and Bad cover art
Kiss Myself Goodbye cover art
Who's In, Who's Out cover art
The Sphinx cover art
A History of Britain in 21 Women cover art
Messalina cover art
Philip cover art
Virginia Woolf cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
An intriguing look into the lives of wealthy women through the ages. Narrated by the author, the performance was decent, though at times it felt a bit monotonous. Thompson's narration is clear, but her delivery can be a bit dry, which made it hard to stay fully engaged.

The story itself is packed with historical facts and fascinating tales, but it can be quite dense with information. While I appreciated the thorough research, I found myself longing for more connection with the heiresses themselves. The book is definitely worth a listen if you're into historical biographies, but be prepared for a lot of detail. Overall, an interesting but somewhat heavy listen.

Intriguing Insights, But Heavy on Info

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very entertaining canter through some of the richest heiresses in history. Proving that money rarely creates happiness. Quite the opposite.

A whirlwind ride through the lives of heiresses

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a fascinating listen, shocking in many ways, especially the stories of heiress abduction. The narrator is excellent and adds to the enjoyment of the book....and as a bonus it was free!!

Great listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Tremendously well researched, brilliant writing and narration. Really engaging and lots of people I hadn’t heard of before to find out more about.

Perfectly narrated, lots of new information

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Explores the conundrum that wealth, far from freeing women, either made them prey to unscrupulous fortune hunters or was the catalyst to hitting the self destruct button. Largely miserable lives -apart from the final person- which does appeal somewhat to schadenfreude.
However - this is a prime example of the fact that often, the writer doesn't make the best narrator. Distracting narration and odd speech impediment somewhat marred the experience.

Lightweight but detail heavy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is so much more than a tale of “poor little rich girls”! Instead, it delves into a centuries’ old tradition of wealthy girls being overtly traded - or in some cases abducted - because they happened to carry an inheritance. The women had no agency, either against parents bartering them for social elevation and a title, or against the seducers who courted them and whisked them away. Once married their patrimony (including children) became their husbands’ property and they, usually unloved for themselves, lived out miserable and stressful lives.
Thus, for me, this book was at its most interesting in its first part, dealing with historical cases about which one probaby previously knew nothing, and yet are important for what they say about society, class and gender. The author deftly points out how some males of “the gentry” but perhaps impoverished (in their terms) would consider wealthy girls of a lower social rank fair game for a false suit or even kidnapping. These men simply felt “entitled” to the fortunes of industrialists and manufacturers whom they considered unworthy - the landed gentry being the real inheritors of the earth’s worldly goods - and would go to any lengths to seduce or kidnap a young and unsuspecting daughter.
The scenario changes in the late 19thC when married women were legally allowed to control their own assets and income, but this is also the period when American heiresses were traded: a massive dowry in exchange for a Duchy or Earldom. Many unhappy and toxic marriages followed. Some plucky heiresses escaped this fate by forming lesbian communes in Paris. Most of the Americans, however, seem to have craved love and attention without the inner resources to forge or sustain a meaningful relationship, and just splashed their inheritance on husband after husband.
The book ends, mercifully, with the story of Angela Burnett-Coutts who inherited the esteemed Coutts Bank and much else but remained an apparently happy spinster dedicating her money to good works & causes, much of this in conjunction with Charles Dickens. Phew! The one that got away!
I’d have given 5 stars all round for this book but for the fact that its second half (C20th) becomes somewhat confusing with too many characters with similar names popping up all over the place, and the author beginning to sound a bit tired of reading. Minor faults! This is a fascinating tour through a neglected part of history, revealing SO much more, in terms of class entitlements and societal connivance, than just the plight of a few rich women!

Fascinating piece of history!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent narration and research by the author - fascinating stories of centuries of misspent wealth

How not to spend your inheritance ( in the main)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Of course we come for a descriptive account of a niche time or status, granted to few, but I definitely stayed for the incredibly human perspective. Lauras’ reading was a delight- it deserved being heard in her own tone.

A book about balance.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I like the way this book examines the lives of women who, on the surface, had everything that we dream of today. It shows how money does not bring happiness, unless the person who has it is equipped to deal with other people's greed and envy, as well as their own sense of guilt. How hieresses were (and still are) hunted by predatory men. And yet some of the most unlikely men perhaps make the best husbands. It asks the question, of what an ordinary person would do, if they had such vast wealth at their disposal.

Absolutely Fascinating

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