Author

Publication

2006-06-01 - Viking Adult

Language

English

Word Count

52,000 words, Guess

Page Count

208 pages

Physical Format

Hardcover

Identifiers

  • Internet Archivewhenastorsownedn00kapl
  • ISBN-100670037699
  • ISBN-139780670037698
  • Goodreads106089
  • LibraryThing1083584
and 1 more

Description

In this marvelous anecdotal history, Justin Kaplan—Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer of Mark Twain—vividly brings to life a glittering, bygone age.Endowed with the largest private fortunes of their day, cousins John Jacob Astor IV and William Waldorf Astor vied for primacy in New York society, producing the grandest hotels ever seen in a marriage of ostentation and efficiency that transformed American social behavior.Kaplan exposes it all in exquisite detail, taking readers from the 1890s to the Roaring Twenties in a combination of biography, history, architectural appreciation, and pure reading pleasure.

First Sentence

WHEN THE Titanic went down in the North Atlantic on the night of April 14-15, 1912, she took with her John Jacob Astor IV.

Subjects

Other Editions

  • When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded AgeHardcoverViking Adult2006-06-01

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