{"product_id":"heiresses-by-miranda-kaufmann-9781836432357","title":"Heiresses","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMeet the heiresses.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTheir dresses are the latest fashion, their rooms Mayfair's most luxurious, their suitors Britain's most powerful men. Their fortunes – blood and sugar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA sobering and significant achievement, this is a book you need to read.\u003c\/em\u003e – Lucy Worsley\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGeorgian heiresses are inescapable in British culture. They flutter through Jane Austen’s novels and countless period dramas. Their portraits – painted by Gainsborough, Zoffany, Reynolds – crowd our museums while their lavish estates pepper the countryside. However, a less genteel story lurks beneath the veneer – those glorious balls, dresses and dowries were funded by the exploitation of enslaved men, women and children.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFollowing the lives of nine heiresses and tracing their tainted money from its origins in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, Miranda Kaufmann reveals a murky world of inheritance, fortune-hunting and human exploitation. From Jane Leigh Perrot, Jane Austen’s light-fingered aunt, to Elizabeth Vassall Fox, who faked her daughter’s death to maintain custody during a tumultuous divorce, \u003cem\u003eHeiresses\u003c\/em\u003e traces the often scandalous lives of the women who helped build Britain’s empire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKaufmann also pieces together the lives of the people these heiresses and their families enslaved. There’s Betsy Newton, who escaped from Barbados to London to confront her enslavers face-to-face. Meanwhile in Jamaica, Susanna Augier became a powerful landowner, inheriting her white father’s properties. Her daughter, an eligible heiress, would marry into the British aristocracy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEnlightening, provocative and masterfully researched, \u003cem\u003eHeiresses\u003c\/em\u003e offers a vital history of enslavement in Britain and the Caribbean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA startling insight into the lives of the real “Mrs Rochesters”. The role of women in plantation slavery, as perpetrators and victims is uncovered by a historian at the height of her powers.\u003c\/em\u003e – Anita Anand, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Patient Assassin\u003c\/em\u003e and co-host of \u003cem\u003eEmpire\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA perfect balance of critical humour and searing historical insight. A must-read.\u003c\/em\u003e – Paterson Joseph, actor and author of \u003cem\u003eThe Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eVivid, shocking and compulsively readable... Miranda Kaufmann is not just a fine investigative historian – she is a superb story-teller.\u003c\/em\u003e – Alex Renton, author of \u003cem\u003eBlood Legacy\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67794238210284,"sku":"9781836432357","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781836432357-heiresses-1.jpg?v=1792452728","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/heiresses-by-miranda-kaufmann-9781836432357","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}