Product Description

When Lionel de Rothschild, from the famous banking dynasty, wrote to his mother to thank her 'for my bride', he had just met his cousin Charlotte in Frankfurt. She was sixteen, and beautiful. An arranged family marriage joining two branches of Europe's most powerful banking firm, it seemed an unlikely love match. Yet it lasted through tragedies and triumphs, as Charlotte became one of the grand chatelaines of the Victorian era, while Lionel became England's leading financier, and the first of his faith to win a seat in Parliament. That dramatic campaign was a prolonged battle that, Charlotte wrote, was 'screaming about the house' for eleven years. Despite - perhaps because - of a surfeit of wealth, and her realization of what money could not buy, she concealed beneath a stubborn will and a sparkling wit an inner melancholy that only her great admirer (and Lionel's best friend) Benjamin Disraeli seemed to recognize. Love and money were the cardinal preoccupations in Victorian life, and the Rothschilds abundantly possessed both, as well as an iconic name. But life works in mysterious ways, often with mixed blessings. This is their enthralling story, told by one of the masterful biographers of nineteenth-century figures - of Victoria and Albert, and Edward Prince of Wales; and Disraeli, Whistler, Rossetti, Beardsley and Shaw.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #701044 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
To be a member of the House of Rothschild was to be super-rich, and the word 'Rothschild' itself has become a metaphor for ultimate wealth. As far as Victorian England was concerned, 'Rothschild' was, crucially, its financial backbone - it was Rothschild money that purchased for the Disraeli government a controlling interest in the Suez canal - Britain's so-called 'Key of India'; Rothschild's courier service delivered Queen Victoria's most private correspondence and Prince Albert was able to borrow money discreetly from the Rothschild coffers. But, as Weintraub's impressively researched dual biography illustrates, to be rich and Jewish in 19th-century high society was a mixed blessing. Lionel de Rothschild was England's leading financier yet it took over a decade's struggle to overcome resistance to his faith and be allowed election as an MP. His bride Charlotte, regarded as a great beauty and one of the top society hostesses, was consistently refused acknowledgement by Victoria. Yet by comparison with dull, angst-ridden dinners at Buckingham Palace and Windsor, the tables at the Rothschild's Piccadilly and Gunnersbury houses were highly sought after for their glitter and elegance. Weintraub is a gifted chronicler of eminent Victorians - Disraeli, Victoria and Prince Albert among them - and his account of this much admired and influential couple reveals them to be an integral part of the political and social drama in Victorian England. Readers will find little in the way of the juicy scandal or notoriety that usually attends the overprivileged but will be refreshed to discover how a loving union and a generous social conscience overcame life's minor tragedies and ensured that its triumphs were not without significance. (Kirkus UK)

John Gross, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'Weintraub is an old hand at Victorian biography...he tells his story with plenty of verve'

TELEGRAPH
'A lively and generous biography . . . a shrewd and original portrait of the age'