Book of the Month - Sisters of Fortune: The Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad

Sisters of Fortune:  The Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad
Author:  Jehanne Wake
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, April 1, 2011

From the Front Cover:

As gripping as the best historical novel, Sisters of Fortune is the story of the exuberant Marianne, Bess, Louisa, and Emily Caton, the American sisters who enthralled the highest levels of English Regency society decades before the notorious Dollar Princesses of the Victorian era. The Caton sisters were descended from prominent first settlers of Maryland, brought up by their wealthy grandfather Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, and were expected to “marry a plantation.” Instead, their grandfather made sure that they were well educated, raising four beautiful and charming young women who were unusually independent, intelligent, fascinated by politics, clever with money, and very romantic.
Arriving in Britain, the Caton sisters swept into the set of the Duke of Wellington and went on to forge their own destinies in the face of intense prejudice against Americans and Catholics. After capturing the heart of the Duke of Wellington, who could never marry her, Marianne shocked the world by marrying his brother Richard, Marquess Wellesley, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and taking a prominent place as a Catholic Yankee among the Protestant Anglo-Irish. Emily married Scots- Canadian John McTavish, heir to Montreal’s North West Company, and stayed home in Maryland, where she managed the family’s estates and wealth. Louisa became the Duchess of Leeds and a member of Queen Victoria’s court, while Bess made a fortune speculating in the stock market.

Based on the sisters’ intimate, unpublished letters and lavishly illustrated, Sisters of Fortune is a portrait of four lively and opinionated women, much of it told in their own voices as they gossip about prominent people of their time, advise family members on political and financial strategy, soothe each other’s sorrows, and rejoice in each other’s triumphs. It is also a meticulously researched history of Anglo-American relations and the political, financial, and social world of the nineteenth century. From post-revolutionary America’s White House and wealthiest plantations to Europe’s rarefied world of titled aristocracy, the story of Maryland’s Caton sisters is a stunning work of scholarship that is intimate in tone, sweeping in scope, and as compelling as any novel.

I have been dying for this book ever since I first heard about it last fall while surfing on Amazon.co.uk.  If America could be said to have an aristocracy the Caton sisters were certainly members. Descended from one of the first families to settle in the colony of Maryland, the Caton sisters had both beauty and vast wealth. While researching my blog post on Napoleon's sister-in-law Betsey Patterson, I had heard about Marianne Caton who was married to Betsey's brother Richard before eventually marrying The Duke of Wellington's brother.  This book is a joy to read and gives some insight into not only post-revolutionary America but also gives the reader an outsider's look at British society in the early 19th Century.  Long before Dollar Princesses like Consuelo Vanderbilt and Jennie Jerome took London by storm, there were the Caton sisters.

I hope to have an interview with the author Jehanne Wake in the next few weeks.  In the meantime, check out her website at http://www.jehannewake.com/ or buy the book at Barnes and Noble or on Amazon