Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution

Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution - Hardcover

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Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution
  • Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution
Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution - Hardcover

Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution - Hardcover

by Amanda Vaill
$36.00
$36.00

Book Overview

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD IN BIOGRAPHY
FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY

"Marvelous . . . An act not only of recovery, but of world building." --The Atlantic

"A thoroughly fascinating biography, filled with Vaill's signature warmth, humor and insight." --The New York Times Book Review

"Elegantly written, intimately detailed and infused with feeling, a gripping account of these two remarkable women, their elite family and their tumultuous era." --The Wall Street Journal

"One of our great biographers takes the sisters out of Hamilton's supporting cast and puts them front and center." --Town & Country

America's founding era reconsidered through the lives of two women as formidable as, and in some respects stronger than, the men they loved, married, and mothered.

If it hadn't been for the Revolutionary War, things might have been very different for the two women Alexander Hamilton came to describe as his "dear brunettes." Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, daughters of colonial Hudson Valley aristocracy, would have followed their family's expectations, making dynastic marriages and supervising substantial households--but they didn't. Instead, they became embroiled in the turmoil of America's insurrection against Great Britain, and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each sister was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them.

Glamorous Angelica, who sought fulfillment in attachments to powerful men, eloped with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales. Eliza, too candid for flirtation and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career; but after his appointment as America's first treasury secretary, she was challenged by the public and private controversies that plagued him--not least of all the attraction that grew between him and her adored sister.

When tragedy followed, everything changed for both women: one was deprived of her animating spirit, while the other gained a new, self-determined life.

Drawing on deep archival research, Amanda Vaill interweaves this family drama with its historical context, creating a narrative with the sweep and intimacy of a nineteenth-century novel. Full of battles and dinner parties, murky politics and transparent frocks, fierce loyalties and betrayals both public and personal, Pride and Pleasure brings two extraordinary American heroines to life.
ISBN9780374254377
Author Amanda Vaill
PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
GenreBiography and History
FormatHardcover
PublishedOctober 2025
LanguageENG- English
Pages720
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography History Nonfiction

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More by Amanda Vaill

Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution

Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution - Hardcover

Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution - Hardcover

By Amanda Vaill

About Amanda Vaill

Amanda Vaill is the author of Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War; the bestselling Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy--A Lost Generation Love Story, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography; and Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, for which she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In addition to writing the screenplay for the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning public television documentary Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About, she has written features and criticism for many publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Harper's Bazaar. She lives in New York City.

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