
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 6 reviews on

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.
Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, born to wealth and privilege in New York's Hudson Valley during the latter half of the eighteenth century, were raised to make good marriages and supervise substantial households. Instead they became embroiled in the turmoil of America's insurrection against Great Britain--and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them. Glamorous Angelica, who sought fulfillment through attachments to powerful men, eloped at twenty with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, first in Paris, then in London, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales. Eliza, one year her junior, too candid for flirtation and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless illegitimate outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career. But after his appointment as America's first Treasury Secretary, she was challenged by the controversies in which he became involved, not the least of which was the attraction that grew between him and her adored sister. When tragedy followed, everything changed for both women: one deprived of her animating spirit, the other improbably gaining a new, self-determined life. "You would not have suffered if you had married into a family less near the sun," wrote Angelica to Eliza, "but then [you would have missed] the pride, the pleasure, the nameless satisfactions." Drawing on deep archival research, including never-published records and letters, 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 loyalty and betrayals both public and personal, Pride and Pleasure brings two extraordinary American heroines to life."Hamilton may have brought attention to the elder sisters' romantic rivalry, but theirs was also a much longer story of philanthropy, political engagement and a young country shifting beneath their feet." --The New York Times
"In this in-depth look at the public and private lives of Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler (and . . . Peggy?), one of our great biographers takes the sisters out of Hamilton's supporting cast and puts them front and center. Here, we see how two formidable characters who came from the same heavyweight New York family learned to wield their power and influence in very different ways that would impact their country for generations to come." --Town and Country
 "[A] luxuriant dual biography . . . Vaill's richly textured portrait [is] an elegant and entertaining account of the surprisingly modern lives of founding women." --Publishers Weekly