Archie and Amelie
Love and Madness in the Gilded Age
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- 9,99 €
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- 9,99 €
Descrizione dell’editore
Filled with glamour, mystery, and madness, Archie and Amélie is the true story chronicling a tumultuous love affair in the Gilded Age.
John Armstrong "Archie" Chanler was an heir to the Astor fortune, an eccentric, dashing, and handsome millionaire. Amélie Rives, Southern belle and the goddaughter of Robert E. Lee, was a daring author, a stunning temptress, and a woman ahead of her time.
Archie and Amélie seemed made for each other—both were passionate, intense, and driven by emotion—but the very things that brought them together would soon tear them apart. Their marriage began with a “secret” wedding that found its way onto the front page of the New York Times, to the dismay of Archie’s relatives and Amélie’s many gentleman friends. To the world, the couple appeared charmed, rich, and famous; they moved in social circles that included Oscar Wilde, Teddy Roosevelt, and Stanford White. But although their love was undeniable, they tormented each other, and their private life was troubled from the start.
They were the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald of their day—a celebrated couple too dramatic and unconventional to last—but their tumultuous story has largely been forgotten. Now, Donna M. Lucey vividly brings to life these extraordinary lovers and their sweeping, tragic romance.
“In the Virginia hunt country just outside of Charlottesville, where I live, the older people still tell stories of a strange couple who died some two generations ago. The stories involve ghosts, the mysterious burning of a church, a murder at a millionaire’s house, a sensational lunacy trial, and a beautiful, scantily clad young woman prowling her gardens at night as if she were searching for something or someone—or trying to walk off the effects of the morphine that was deranging her. I was inclined to dismiss all of this as tall tales Virginians love to spin out; but when I looked into these yarns I found proof that they were true. . . .” —Donna M. Lucey on Archie and Amélie
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A great-great-grandson and heir of John Jacob Astor, John Armstrong "Archie" Chanler was born with the proverbial platinum spoon in his mouth but was no stranger to misfortune. His mother died in 1875 when he was just 13, and his father's demise two years later made Archie the de facto head of the family of 10 orphans. An eccentric who, Lucey concludes, probably suffered from bipolar disorder, Archie married the mesmerizing Am lie Rives, goddaughter of Gen. Robert E. Lee and a Virginia novelist whose scandalous heroines made her a literary sensation. Am lie was a master manipulator and morphine addict who refused her besotted husband sex and affection while spending his inheritance to refurbish her family plantation. The couple's divorce after seven years was fodder for the media as were Archie's commitment to a mental institution by siblings alarmed by his free-spending ways, his escape four years later and his lawsuits to prove his sanity and reclaim his fortune. Writer and photo editor Lucey ably chronicles the pomp and excesses of the Gilded Age, but her book bogs down in exhaustively researched details about a parade of glittering Astors and their retinue. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
