Anderson Cooper chronicles the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty--his mother's family--the Vanderbilts.

With the dawn of the twentieth century on the horizon, the fortunes of the venerable Vanderbilt family still shine brightly in the glittering high society of Newport, Rhode Island. But when a potential scandal strikes, the Vanderbilts turn to cousin and society page reporter Emma Cross to solve a murder of a fortune teller and the disappearance of Consuelo Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt: The very name is synonymous with the Gilded Age. The family patriarch, "the Commodore, " built a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet, less than fifty years after his death, no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Written by descendant Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children traces the dramatic and amazingly colorful history of this great American family, from the rise of industrialist and...

November, 1895, St Thomas Episcopal Church on New York City's Fifth Avenue. Heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt, just 18, has been bullied by her mother into marriage to the aloof Duke of Marlborough. Some of the vast Vanderbilt wealth was traded for a title and prestige, and Consuelo, bred to obey, realizes she must make the best of things. At Blenheim Palace, Consuelo is confronted with an overwhelming list of duties, including producing an heir and a spare,...

Lucius Beebe said that "The nearest thing to a royal family that has ever appeared on the American scene was the Vanderbilt's their vendettas, their armies of servitors, partisans and sycophants, their love affairs, scandals, and shortcomings, all were the stuff of an imperial routine."Stasz reveals new facts and insights into the fascinating lives of three generations of Vanderbilt women who dominated New York society from the middle of the eighteenth...

In 1926, a diplomat's daughter married to a member of the British aristocracy begins a love affair with Edward, Prince of Wales, but their relationship is upended by the scandal of her twin sister's custody trial. Before Edward, Prince of Wales renounced his throne for American divorcee Wallis Simpson, he loved another: Thelma Morgan Furness, sister to the first Gloria Vanderbilt. This is her story.