{"product_id":"heiresses-marriage-inheritance-and-caribbean-slavery","title":"Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMeet the heiresses. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTheir dresses are the latest fashion, their rooms Mayfair's most luxurious, their suitors Britain's most powerful men.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTheir fortunes - blood and sugar.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'This is a book you need to read.' Lucy Worsley\u003c\/strong\u003e\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\u003etraces 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\u003cbr\u003e\nNewton, 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, Heiresses offers a vital history of enslavement in Britain and the Caribbean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e***\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A 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.'\u003cstrong\u003e Anita Anand, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Patient Assassin \u003c\/em\u003eand co-host of \u003cem\u003eEmpire\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A perfect balance of critical humour and searing historical insight. A must-read.'\u003cstrong\u003e Paterson Joseph, actor and author of \u003cem\u003eThe Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Vivid, shocking and compulsively readable... Miranda Kaufmann is not just a fine investigative historian - she is a superb story-teller.' \u003cstrong\u003eAlex Renton, author of \u003cem\u003eBlood Legacy\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHardback | 544 pages | Published September 2025\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GARDNERS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":63986239603037,"sku":"9780861548019","price":37.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0978\/3459\/8749\/files\/9780861548019.jpg?v=1774497522","url":"https:\/\/www.thebookmark.ie\/products\/heiresses-marriage-inheritance-and-caribbean-slavery","provider":"The Bookmark ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}