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Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age
Betsy Prioleau’s biography of Gilded Age female tycoon Miriam Leslie is “an appropriately twisty tale of someone trying to outrun her origins. . . . Her story sparkles, as intoxicating as a champagne fountain that somebody else is paying for” ( New York Times Book Review ).
Among the fabled tycoons of the Gilded Age—Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt—is a forgotten Mrs. Frank Leslie. For 20 years she ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. But Miriam Leslie was also a byword for She flouted feminine convention, took lovers, married four times, and harbored unsavory secrets that she concealed through a skein of lies and multiple personas. Both during and after her lifetime, glimpses of the truth emerged, including an illegitimate birth and a checkered youth.
Diamonds and Deadlines reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “empress of journalism,” who dropped a bombshell at her She left her entire multimillion-dollar estate to women’s suffrage—a never-equaled amount that guaranteed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In this dazzling biography, cultural historian Betsy Prioleau draws from diaries, genealogies, and published works to provide an intimate look at the life of one of the Gilded Age’s most complex, powerful women and unexpected feminist icons.
Ultimately, Diamonds and Deadlines restores Mrs. Frank Leslie to her rightful place in history, as a monumental businesswoman who presaged the feminist future and reflected, in bold relief, the Gilded Age, one of the most momentous, seismic, and vivid epochs in American history.
Includes black-and-white images
Among the fabled tycoons of the Gilded Age—Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt—is a forgotten Mrs. Frank Leslie. For 20 years she ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. But Miriam Leslie was also a byword for She flouted feminine convention, took lovers, married four times, and harbored unsavory secrets that she concealed through a skein of lies and multiple personas. Both during and after her lifetime, glimpses of the truth emerged, including an illegitimate birth and a checkered youth.
Diamonds and Deadlines reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “empress of journalism,” who dropped a bombshell at her She left her entire multimillion-dollar estate to women’s suffrage—a never-equaled amount that guaranteed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In this dazzling biography, cultural historian Betsy Prioleau draws from diaries, genealogies, and published works to provide an intimate look at the life of one of the Gilded Age’s most complex, powerful women and unexpected feminist icons.
Ultimately, Diamonds and Deadlines restores Mrs. Frank Leslie to her rightful place in history, as a monumental businesswoman who presaged the feminist future and reflected, in bold relief, the Gilded Age, one of the most momentous, seismic, and vivid epochs in American history.
Includes black-and-white images
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2022
About the author
Betsy Prioleau
4 books60 followersBetsy Prioleau is the author of Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age (Abrams Press, 2022), Swoon: Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them (W. W. Norton, 2013), Circle of Eros (Duke University Press), and Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love (Penguin/Viking). She has a Ph.D. in literature from Duke University, was an associate professor at Manhattan College, and taught cultural history at New York University. She lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
July 27, 2022
This book aims to make over a "vain, bigoted, imperious, and hard-boiled" woman into a feminist icon, and it fails miserably, IMO. Mrs. Frank Leslie has been more or less forgotten in history for a reason, and this book does little to make the argument that she should be brought back to the forefront. Her lasting legacy - leaving nearly $2m to Carrie Chapman Catt, then-president of the American Women's Suffrage Association - was basically a giant fuck you to those in her immediate orbit. Yes, the money ultimately helped win the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, but its not like Mrs. Leslie was a big fan of her sex in life. She spent the vast majority of her time chasing fake European nobles and conmen in the vain attempt to climb the social ladder of New York Society. Mrs. Astor's Four Hundred cut her many, many times and I, for one, loved every bit of it. Gilded Age society was ridiculous, but the more she wanted in, the more obvious they were about leaving her out, and there's something very petty (yet satisfying) about that. She could've done so much more with her time and energy than chase snobs, but she made the choice to deny her family history and her roots as a poor girl from the South. There's nothing worse than someone who makes money in their lifetime and spends it trying to pull the ladder up behind them; dogging the poor, sick and hungry for being moral deviants and deserving of their fates; who considers labor "beneath" them and unworthy of time or attention. She could care less about having the vote until she became an angry old woman, realizing just how much she'd lost out on in life.
Miriam Leslie can fade away back into the dark corners of history, please. She did nothing to advance anyone beyond herself in her lifetime, and shouldn't be lauded for literally handing out money at the very last minute.
Miriam Leslie can fade away back into the dark corners of history, please. She did nothing to advance anyone beyond herself in her lifetime, and shouldn't be lauded for literally handing out money at the very last minute.
March 9, 2022
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy to review. This book was a struggle to rate, as it is very obviously thoroughly researched and informative, but the delivery and abundance of said material most definitely dragged it down for me.
I learned a lot from this book! About Miriam Leslie herself, her probable mixed racial heritage, how she managed to live in a ménage à trois in full view of society, the many market busts she weathered once she had married into money. She was a mix of contradictions; mixed-race and passing, yet the newspaper empire Leslie built was founded in part by courting confederate pro-slavery sensibilities in order to keep as large an audience as possible. Miriam herself learned how to read the room, the popular magazines she began to run promoting women's societal roles as mothers and household keepers, even as she herself shirked household duties and domestic affairs. She really contained multitudes in this sense, straddling social dichotomies in the ways best to her own social and financial advantage.
The book presents more societal history, too; I never knew how pro-slavery the city of New York was at the end of the 1850s, the sweatshop labor practices involved in production of Cuban cigars, specific cosmetics one would use at the turn of the century. In a memorable passage the author mentions the Franco-Prussian war and a choice quote from one of the commanders ("We're in a chamber pot, and they'll shit on us"), an entertaining inclusion.
So I will say this was clearly well researched and very detailed, particularly with the ins and outs of the newspaper industry but...this often renders passages dense and dull, too. It became a chore to get through.
There are also oddities with the writing style beyond its boring nature. Passages and paragraphs are liberally doused with quotation marks, often around sporadic single words so that half the page seems to be the punctuation symbols. Sometimes they're more air quote than normal quote marks, too, and I feel like paraphrasing or some other tactic could've gotten the point across with less quotes all over.
High educational value combined with low readability for me to place this at about three stars.
I learned a lot from this book! About Miriam Leslie herself, her probable mixed racial heritage, how she managed to live in a ménage à trois in full view of society, the many market busts she weathered once she had married into money. She was a mix of contradictions; mixed-race and passing, yet the newspaper empire Leslie built was founded in part by courting confederate pro-slavery sensibilities in order to keep as large an audience as possible. Miriam herself learned how to read the room, the popular magazines she began to run promoting women's societal roles as mothers and household keepers, even as she herself shirked household duties and domestic affairs. She really contained multitudes in this sense, straddling social dichotomies in the ways best to her own social and financial advantage.
The book presents more societal history, too; I never knew how pro-slavery the city of New York was at the end of the 1850s, the sweatshop labor practices involved in production of Cuban cigars, specific cosmetics one would use at the turn of the century. In a memorable passage the author mentions the Franco-Prussian war and a choice quote from one of the commanders ("We're in a chamber pot, and they'll shit on us"), an entertaining inclusion.
So I will say this was clearly well researched and very detailed, particularly with the ins and outs of the newspaper industry but...this often renders passages dense and dull, too. It became a chore to get through.
There are also oddities with the writing style beyond its boring nature. Passages and paragraphs are liberally doused with quotation marks, often around sporadic single words so that half the page seems to be the punctuation symbols. Sometimes they're more air quote than normal quote marks, too, and I feel like paraphrasing or some other tactic could've gotten the point across with less quotes all over.
High educational value combined with low readability for me to place this at about three stars.
March 3, 2022
Diamonds and Deadlines by Betsy Prioleau is the perfect balance of multiple elements. The story of newspaper mogul Miriam Leslie (among a host of many other names), Prioleau writes a biography of a complicated woman who is part fraud and part trailblazer.
This can easily become a dry list of personal accomplishments, hero worship, or gossip mongering. Instead, Prioleau tells a nuanced story which takes into account all aspects of Leslie’s life whether the facts make her look amazing or awful. And very often, she can look one way and the complete opposite on the next page.
The perfect example of Prioleau’s easy writing style is the description of Leslie’s many fashion choices. Often, authors fall into the trap of showing off how extensive their research is by over-explaining the grandeur of any given wardrobe choice. Leslie’s choice of dress is vital to her character, but Prioleau quickly highlights her very expensive choices without bogging down the narrative with pages of explanation. Her narrative is even and never slows down to focus on needless details. It takes this from a good biography to a great read.
Full review available at: http://historynerdsunited.com/2022/03....
This can easily become a dry list of personal accomplishments, hero worship, or gossip mongering. Instead, Prioleau tells a nuanced story which takes into account all aspects of Leslie’s life whether the facts make her look amazing or awful. And very often, she can look one way and the complete opposite on the next page.
The perfect example of Prioleau’s easy writing style is the description of Leslie’s many fashion choices. Often, authors fall into the trap of showing off how extensive their research is by over-explaining the grandeur of any given wardrobe choice. Leslie’s choice of dress is vital to her character, but Prioleau quickly highlights her very expensive choices without bogging down the narrative with pages of explanation. Her narrative is even and never slows down to focus on needless details. It takes this from a good biography to a great read.
Full review available at: http://historynerdsunited.com/2022/03....
April 18, 2022
Just finished this audiobook and I really liked it. Don't know why but I just can't read non-fiction works, but I can listen to them all day. That said, this book was fascinating! The life of Mariam Leslie was so complicated, roller coaster of ups and downs, a wanting to be loved, name changes happening just as much as she reinvented herself, and appeared like a constant fight! I'm so glad I chose to listen to this audiobook, well worth it!
December 20, 2022
Usually I enjoy books that cover the Gilded Age, whether they are survey histories of the period or profiles of the famous society members. However I couldn't enjoy this particular book. Yes it is impressive that Miriam Leslie was able to take over her 3rd husband's newspaper business at a time when the majority of newspapers were run by men. However, all the subterfuge in her life regarding her background is a turn off for me. There is nothing wrong with being a trailblazer in business...but Miriam could have accomplished that without being so immoral in other ways. I'm lost on how female empowerment can be gleaned from this book. What I see is human arrogance and hypocrisy. She can't be empowered and yet still feel that a man should provide for her financially. It's either one or the other. Others may enjoy this book, but it just didn't work for me.
March 27, 2023
For readers that are history buffs, Gilded Age lovers and feminists, this book is for you. Thoroughly researched, “Diamonds and Deadlines” takes you through the life and career of Miriam Leslie, and it’s interesting at every turn. From her poor upbringing to numerous attempts at marriage to leadership at the helm of a number of publications, Miriam Leslie is a figure I’d never heard of, but now won’t soon forget. Overshadowed by the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers in wealth, and Pulitizers and Hearsts in publishing, Miriam forged a name for herself as a woman in charge. Leaving a financial endowment for the suffrage movement after her death, Leslie showed that earlier decisions and sentiments may have been made to remain secure in her career, but left a large impact on the women’s movement at large. Big thanks to NetGalley and Abrams Press for this ARC!
April 24, 2022
A woman of questionable heritage, fortuitously schooled in female and theatrical arts at which she excelled, Miriam Leslie (one of her many surnames) rose from Bowery to the big time in the Gilded Age, a seminal period in America’s history when war was over and fortunes were being made. Betsy Prioleau presents Miriam’s life in fine detail, from her undistinguished birth to her remarkable legacy.
Miriam once said that she “never had any childhood,” referencing her father’s failed investments and desperate moves to foul and frightening neighborhoods, from New Orleans to the streets of New York City. She somehow “joined” her family --- no one knows quite how --- suspected to have been the child of one of her father’s slaves. She doubtless learned the ploys of women’s wiles from within her own small clan. An early and fateful meeting was with Lola Montez, a famed actress and spiritualist who, for reasons of her own, took Miriam under her wing.
By the time she was in her early 20s, Miriam had definite notions of how she should present herself --- with a haughty exterior and fashionable finery, makeup designed to disguise her darker skin color, and an aggressive, egocentric stance in all matters, even those of the heart. In a time when women’s rights were in their nascent stages and females were expected to do as they were told and not enjoy sex, Miriam became a flag bearer for a totally different ethos. By the time she garnered her third husband, publisher Frank Leslie, she was ready to take a strong hand in his business. When it was almost on the verge of bankruptcy, she brought his Illustrated Newspaper to sudden prominence with photographic coverage of the assassination of President Garfield.
Prioleau frankly reveals Miriam’s unabashed lusts and self-seeking proclivities while extolling her strengths, seeing her as a woman whom history unfairly forgot. One undeniable reason for a closer look at this paradoxical figure is Miriam’s final, substantial act. Her will left the bulk of her fortune to women’s rights activist Carrie Chapman Catt, to whom she referred as the “splendid general of suffrage.” This is despite the fact that in her journalistic career, Miriam could be disparaging or seemingly ignorant of newsworthy left-wing causes, often choosing instead to praise the financial magnates and their unalloyed power grabbing, in which she was often a participant. Arguably, men whose flaws mirrored Miriam’s were lauded in the annals of the Gilded Age --- since questionable morals were a masculine virtue --- and Miriam simply mimicked them to her personal and professional benefit.
Prioleau, who has gained fame as an author, radio personality and historian, feels certain that her protagonist merits our attention because she was “visible, engaged, fulfilled, and at the forefront.”
Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott
Miriam once said that she “never had any childhood,” referencing her father’s failed investments and desperate moves to foul and frightening neighborhoods, from New Orleans to the streets of New York City. She somehow “joined” her family --- no one knows quite how --- suspected to have been the child of one of her father’s slaves. She doubtless learned the ploys of women’s wiles from within her own small clan. An early and fateful meeting was with Lola Montez, a famed actress and spiritualist who, for reasons of her own, took Miriam under her wing.
By the time she was in her early 20s, Miriam had definite notions of how she should present herself --- with a haughty exterior and fashionable finery, makeup designed to disguise her darker skin color, and an aggressive, egocentric stance in all matters, even those of the heart. In a time when women’s rights were in their nascent stages and females were expected to do as they were told and not enjoy sex, Miriam became a flag bearer for a totally different ethos. By the time she garnered her third husband, publisher Frank Leslie, she was ready to take a strong hand in his business. When it was almost on the verge of bankruptcy, she brought his Illustrated Newspaper to sudden prominence with photographic coverage of the assassination of President Garfield.
Prioleau frankly reveals Miriam’s unabashed lusts and self-seeking proclivities while extolling her strengths, seeing her as a woman whom history unfairly forgot. One undeniable reason for a closer look at this paradoxical figure is Miriam’s final, substantial act. Her will left the bulk of her fortune to women’s rights activist Carrie Chapman Catt, to whom she referred as the “splendid general of suffrage.” This is despite the fact that in her journalistic career, Miriam could be disparaging or seemingly ignorant of newsworthy left-wing causes, often choosing instead to praise the financial magnates and their unalloyed power grabbing, in which she was often a participant. Arguably, men whose flaws mirrored Miriam’s were lauded in the annals of the Gilded Age --- since questionable morals were a masculine virtue --- and Miriam simply mimicked them to her personal and professional benefit.
Prioleau, who has gained fame as an author, radio personality and historian, feels certain that her protagonist merits our attention because she was “visible, engaged, fulfilled, and at the forefront.”
Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott
July 17, 2022
Thank you Abrams Books for this advanced copy through the giveaway here on Goodreads!
This woman is fascinating. I really enjoyed reading the beginning ~ 50 and last ~ 50 pages. I found it a little rough through the middle as it felt like a lot of repetitive descriptions of Miriam Leslie’s dress and deceit (I think a large point of the book). Her legacy we largely don’t understand and I’m so grateful to the author for sharing it with us!
If you enjoy well-researched biographies and learning about women’s rights amidst a challenging social climate, this is the read for you.
This woman is fascinating. I really enjoyed reading the beginning ~ 50 and last ~ 50 pages. I found it a little rough through the middle as it felt like a lot of repetitive descriptions of Miriam Leslie’s dress and deceit (I think a large point of the book). Her legacy we largely don’t understand and I’m so grateful to the author for sharing it with us!
If you enjoy well-researched biographies and learning about women’s rights amidst a challenging social climate, this is the read for you.
March 1, 2022
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I’ve been reading and watching a lot of books and documentaries about the Gilded Age, when Vanderbilts and Rockefellers and Morgans ruled the United States. I thought I knew all the major players, but I was wrong. There was another titan, this one of publishing, that I’d not heard of before: Miriam Leslie. Her life is a fascinating story. I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age from NetGalley and Abrams Press in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Like I said, I had never heard of Miriam Leslie, also known as Mrs. Frank Leslie, in all my reading about the Gilded Age. But there she was, the head of a publishing empire upon the death of her husband. The periodicals she produced are not known today, but in their time, they were some of the most highly circulated magazines in the country. The story of how she got there is fascinating.
The beginning part of the book was very confusing because there was so much confusion about Miriam’s early life. There’s so much about Miriam’s early life that is purely conjecture, some that is based upon written letters, some by Miriam herself and others. What is alleged in this book is that Miriam was actually born illegitimately in the south and was biracial. As an adult, she used plenty of powders to hide her darker olive complexion, and “passed” as white. She may or may not have been a prostitute at some points in her life, she most certainly had a lot of lovers and racked up four husbands in an era when divorce was shocking.
Miriam accumulated not only husbands but great wealth through them, most importantly through her third husband, Frank Leslie. But lest one think that Miriam simply inherited the publishing empire and then went to work, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. During his lifetime, Frank Leslie gave his wife control of several publications and trusted her judgment and style. The two traveled to Europe once a year and she had her entire wardrobe designed by Worth’s in Paris, meaning she was always the height of fashion. Frank also bought her copious amount of jewels, which she draped over herself for their many society outings. Women looked to her, through her publications, to see what was fashionable, and how to be a better woman.
Miriam may not seem like a suffragist the way she constantly concentrated on jewels, clothes and makeup, and how a polite lady behaves in society, but later in life, she befriended Cary Chapman Catt, the suffragist. During the last years of her life, she changed her will no less than six times, and ultimately, at the time of her death, left the bulk of her estate to the suffragist movement. The amount was approximately $2 million. After lawsuits and lawyers’ fees were paid, the final amount was around $1 million. That money was used in a variety of ways to aid the movement and was a big reason the 19th amendment was passed when it did.
I’ve been reading and watching a lot of books and documentaries about the Gilded Age, when Vanderbilts and Rockefellers and Morgans ruled the United States. I thought I knew all the major players, but I was wrong. There was another titan, this one of publishing, that I’d not heard of before: Miriam Leslie. Her life is a fascinating story. I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age from NetGalley and Abrams Press in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Like I said, I had never heard of Miriam Leslie, also known as Mrs. Frank Leslie, in all my reading about the Gilded Age. But there she was, the head of a publishing empire upon the death of her husband. The periodicals she produced are not known today, but in their time, they were some of the most highly circulated magazines in the country. The story of how she got there is fascinating.
The beginning part of the book was very confusing because there was so much confusion about Miriam’s early life. There’s so much about Miriam’s early life that is purely conjecture, some that is based upon written letters, some by Miriam herself and others. What is alleged in this book is that Miriam was actually born illegitimately in the south and was biracial. As an adult, she used plenty of powders to hide her darker olive complexion, and “passed” as white. She may or may not have been a prostitute at some points in her life, she most certainly had a lot of lovers and racked up four husbands in an era when divorce was shocking.
Miriam accumulated not only husbands but great wealth through them, most importantly through her third husband, Frank Leslie. But lest one think that Miriam simply inherited the publishing empire and then went to work, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. During his lifetime, Frank Leslie gave his wife control of several publications and trusted her judgment and style. The two traveled to Europe once a year and she had her entire wardrobe designed by Worth’s in Paris, meaning she was always the height of fashion. Frank also bought her copious amount of jewels, which she draped over herself for their many society outings. Women looked to her, through her publications, to see what was fashionable, and how to be a better woman.
Miriam may not seem like a suffragist the way she constantly concentrated on jewels, clothes and makeup, and how a polite lady behaves in society, but later in life, she befriended Cary Chapman Catt, the suffragist. During the last years of her life, she changed her will no less than six times, and ultimately, at the time of her death, left the bulk of her estate to the suffragist movement. The amount was approximately $2 million. After lawsuits and lawyers’ fees were paid, the final amount was around $1 million. That money was used in a variety of ways to aid the movement and was a big reason the 19th amendment was passed when it did.
June 10, 2022
Gotta love a book, whether fiction or nonfiction, that allows its woman protagonist to be what most of us actually are: complicated. Prioleau retrieves Miriam Leslie from the proverbial dustbin of history and places her where she belongs — as a towering yet somehow forgotten figure of the Gilded Age — and neither sugarcoats nor makes excuses for her many faults. She is clear about Miriam’s bigotry, elitism, and callousness towards the working class. We get the full picture of Miriam’s self-mythologizing and self-aggrandizement. Prioleau, rightly, does not ask us to pardon these sins.
What the author *does* do, to great effect, is give us the larger context in which Miriam lived. She paints a vivid picture of the Gilded Age (sometimes quite literally, describing the colors, smells, and sounds that defined urban life at the time). Explaining the economic, social, and political forces at play, Prioleau situates Miriam for us, so that we can appreciate how — despite her flaws — she was quite a revolutionary figure and a champion of progress for women.
So, this book serves as both an entertaining read and an important reminder that, hey, two things can be true at the same time. A person can be *both* a harbor of truly rotten beliefs about her fellow human beings, *and* a generous benefactor of deeply worthy causes. We’re complicated, and that’s a good thing to be made to sit with.
What the author *does* do, to great effect, is give us the larger context in which Miriam lived. She paints a vivid picture of the Gilded Age (sometimes quite literally, describing the colors, smells, and sounds that defined urban life at the time). Explaining the economic, social, and political forces at play, Prioleau situates Miriam for us, so that we can appreciate how — despite her flaws — she was quite a revolutionary figure and a champion of progress for women.
So, this book serves as both an entertaining read and an important reminder that, hey, two things can be true at the same time. A person can be *both* a harbor of truly rotten beliefs about her fellow human beings, *and* a generous benefactor of deeply worthy causes. We’re complicated, and that’s a good thing to be made to sit with.
August 1, 2022
I'm glad I read this. I had heard of Miriam Leslie in passing, but I knew nothing about her. Turns out she was quite the character, as well as an unlikely, but real, important early feminist. Most of all, she was an extremely complicated, many-sided person, and some of those sides were not pretty at all. (Especially the obsessively social-climbing side, so determined to climb the rigid New York society aristocratic ladder she made up whole fictions about herself.) She was a woman who seemed to think she had to play (or reveled in playing) a part her whole life--the ultra-fashionable and ultra-judgmental society woman, someone ever-looking to marry, and rely upon, the next titled prince that came along--while at the same time being a hard-working journalist and unusually daring businesswoman. It's quite the complicated picture. Prioleau goes to pains to show all those sides fairly. Leslie is not a feminist for our times, but she was for her own times, and I guess that is what matters.
December 3, 2022
Betsy Prioleau gives us an honest, full-hearted, fascinating, gorgeous glimpse into this woman's life -- and we absolutely love every minute! What a fabulous story! What a fabulous woman! I promise, you will turn the pages of this book very quickly because you'll be eager to see what's next. And then, after you turn the last page, you'll leaf through what you've just read, to re-live some of those moments. I give this book my highest recommendation.
January 23, 2022
Miriam Leslie was virtually unknown to me until I read this biography. She fabricated her background, had illicit relationships , and spearheaded a publishing empire. She lived the glitz and glam life of the Gilded Age, but was out of touché with reality as she aged.
Still, she lived life in her own terms and I can admire that.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Abrams Press for the advance read.
Still, she lived life in her own terms and I can admire that.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Abrams Press for the advance read.
June 22, 2023
Fascinating.
Read
May 16, 2022In 1917, the fight for women’s suffrage had stalled. Warring factions had splintered and weakened the movement, and New York State rejected women’s right to vote in 1915.
But then the National Woman Suffrage Association received a windfall. A woman named Mrs. Frank Leslie had left nearly all of her $2 million estate to the organization: an enormous sum that basically supercharged the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919.
The donation shocked New York society. “Mrs. Frank Leslie” — née Miriam Florence Follin — was an unlikely suffragette. This so-called “empress of journalism” preferred corseted gowns to bloomers, diamonds and pearls to “Votes for Women” sashes, and Gilded Age galas to marches. She spent her 40-plus years as an editor and columnist at various popular magazines instructing women how to apply makeup, keep house, secure a husband and act like a proper lady. (Even at work she wore a ruffled organdy apron over her wasp-waisted dresses.)
Yet Leslie was hardly the complacent, doting housewife.
An enterprising businesswoman, she fought — her detractors might have said “slept” — her way to the top with ruthless determination. She helmed the country’s biggest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing House, for 20 years after she inherited it from her third husband, bringing it back from the brink of bankruptcy and managing some 400 male employees with an iron hand.
Plus, she openly flouted convention, taking lovers, divorcing three of her four husbands and shamelessly courting publicity through her gaudy jewels, conspicuous consumption and torrid affairs. Her friends included the flamboyant writer Oscar Wilde and the showman P.T. Barnum.
Mrs. Leslie, however, rarely gets mentioned among those other Gilded media titans Pulitzer and Hearst. A new biography, “Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age” by Betsy Prioleau (Abrams Press), tells her spectacular story, from debased childhood to vaunted opulence. More than a Gilded Age girlboss, Mrs. Frank Leslie — Prioleau argues — was a titan, and an unsung, if complicated, feminist heroine who “deserves to be back in the public eye.”
Read more of my write-up for the NY Post: https://nypost.com/2022/04/16/unlikel...
But then the National Woman Suffrage Association received a windfall. A woman named Mrs. Frank Leslie had left nearly all of her $2 million estate to the organization: an enormous sum that basically supercharged the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919.
The donation shocked New York society. “Mrs. Frank Leslie” — née Miriam Florence Follin — was an unlikely suffragette. This so-called “empress of journalism” preferred corseted gowns to bloomers, diamonds and pearls to “Votes for Women” sashes, and Gilded Age galas to marches. She spent her 40-plus years as an editor and columnist at various popular magazines instructing women how to apply makeup, keep house, secure a husband and act like a proper lady. (Even at work she wore a ruffled organdy apron over her wasp-waisted dresses.)
Yet Leslie was hardly the complacent, doting housewife.
An enterprising businesswoman, she fought — her detractors might have said “slept” — her way to the top with ruthless determination. She helmed the country’s biggest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing House, for 20 years after she inherited it from her third husband, bringing it back from the brink of bankruptcy and managing some 400 male employees with an iron hand.
Plus, she openly flouted convention, taking lovers, divorcing three of her four husbands and shamelessly courting publicity through her gaudy jewels, conspicuous consumption and torrid affairs. Her friends included the flamboyant writer Oscar Wilde and the showman P.T. Barnum.
Mrs. Leslie, however, rarely gets mentioned among those other Gilded media titans Pulitzer and Hearst. A new biography, “Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age” by Betsy Prioleau (Abrams Press), tells her spectacular story, from debased childhood to vaunted opulence. More than a Gilded Age girlboss, Mrs. Frank Leslie — Prioleau argues — was a titan, and an unsung, if complicated, feminist heroine who “deserves to be back in the public eye.”
Read more of my write-up for the NY Post: https://nypost.com/2022/04/16/unlikel...
March 22, 2022
I received this book as a giveaway. This was underwhelming. Focused on Miriam Leslie, who ran a publishing empire in Gilded Age New York, the work tends to focus to much on Miriam's personal relationships and her continual run jns with fake aristocrats.
Due to this focus on her romantic relationships, the author takes focus away from the shifting social conditions in the US. Additionally, the book references Miriam's prolific article writing, there are never excerpts or examples provided. The story of Miriam Leslie is interesting, but could told better than it is in this work
Due to this focus on her romantic relationships, the author takes focus away from the shifting social conditions in the US. Additionally, the book references Miriam's prolific article writing, there are never excerpts or examples provided. The story of Miriam Leslie is interesting, but could told better than it is in this work
June 14, 2022
Fascinating woman, that Mariam Leslie!
I had to keep reminding myself that Prioleau was writing nonfiction, because sometimes it tries to sound like a novel but then there are references to 6 people you've never heard of.
I listened to the audio book. Recommend that because it is excellently read!
I had to keep reminding myself that Prioleau was writing nonfiction, because sometimes it tries to sound like a novel but then there are references to 6 people you've never heard of.
I listened to the audio book. Recommend that because it is excellently read!
October 14, 2023
The original Kardashian, minus the clan. That said, it seems as though the author got stuck on a research project hoping her subject would become interesting; unfortunately, that never materialized.
January 14, 2022
This book is a riveting, rollicking read. The bizarre and sometimes incredible plot twists of Miriam Leslie’s life are somewhere between a fever dream and the cliffhangers of a serialized novel. She is addicting and you simply must know what happens next. Leslie’s professional accomplishments commanding a Gilded Age publishing empire made her a celebrity in her day. She should be better known in ours, and Prioleau’s Diamonds and Deadlines moves in that direction.
Miriam Leslie wholly invented and frequently reinvented herself. Her identities were numerous. She was born in poverty in New Orleans in 1836 as Miriam Follin to a shiftless white father always desperately looking for a way to get rich quick and possibly to an enslaved Black mother. She manufactured a pedigree that obscured her race and class and early exposure to various unsavory situations, including prostitution and a turn on the stage (which was, at the time, almost equally morally suspect). She married multiple times, including late in life inexplicably to Oscar Wilde’s dissolute younger brother. She was constantly in the company of fraudsters and poseurs trying to get something from nothing. Frank Leslie (not his real name, of course!), her third of four husbands, was seemingly the only one in her orbit who actually worked and succeeded, though he, too, left her in financial ruin when he died. She then took over the reins of his media operation—calling herself not just Mrs. Frank Leslie but actually changing her own name to Frank Leslie—and righted the ship, though she then herself sank it at least once before returning to wealth. You will lose count of her husbands, suitors, names, fake birth years, Manhattan addresses, bad bets, and dramatic reversals of fortune. But she kept going, ultimately declaring herself Baroness de Bazus, a completely fabricated title that the New York Times actually used in referring to her at her death.
She presented as, by and large, all about herself, and was not particularly interested in the status of women or their professional opportunities generally. Yet at her death in 1914, she unexpectedly left her sizable estate to Carrie Chapman Catt’s work, making her the single largest benefactor of women’s suffrage efforts, and thus through her personal trailblazing and philanthropy did make possible notable advances for women.
Considering that Leslie spent most of her life obscuring the truth and creating decoy histories and identities that became the public record, Prioleau has done a remarkable job locating and restoring the facts about this “woman of grit and swish.” Interestingly, stripping away the puffery does not diminish Leslie’s accomplishments.
Miriam Leslie wholly invented and frequently reinvented herself. Her identities were numerous. She was born in poverty in New Orleans in 1836 as Miriam Follin to a shiftless white father always desperately looking for a way to get rich quick and possibly to an enslaved Black mother. She manufactured a pedigree that obscured her race and class and early exposure to various unsavory situations, including prostitution and a turn on the stage (which was, at the time, almost equally morally suspect). She married multiple times, including late in life inexplicably to Oscar Wilde’s dissolute younger brother. She was constantly in the company of fraudsters and poseurs trying to get something from nothing. Frank Leslie (not his real name, of course!), her third of four husbands, was seemingly the only one in her orbit who actually worked and succeeded, though he, too, left her in financial ruin when he died. She then took over the reins of his media operation—calling herself not just Mrs. Frank Leslie but actually changing her own name to Frank Leslie—and righted the ship, though she then herself sank it at least once before returning to wealth. You will lose count of her husbands, suitors, names, fake birth years, Manhattan addresses, bad bets, and dramatic reversals of fortune. But she kept going, ultimately declaring herself Baroness de Bazus, a completely fabricated title that the New York Times actually used in referring to her at her death.
She presented as, by and large, all about herself, and was not particularly interested in the status of women or their professional opportunities generally. Yet at her death in 1914, she unexpectedly left her sizable estate to Carrie Chapman Catt’s work, making her the single largest benefactor of women’s suffrage efforts, and thus through her personal trailblazing and philanthropy did make possible notable advances for women.
Considering that Leslie spent most of her life obscuring the truth and creating decoy histories and identities that became the public record, Prioleau has done a remarkable job locating and restoring the facts about this “woman of grit and swish.” Interestingly, stripping away the puffery does not diminish Leslie’s accomplishments.
March 25, 2022
Diamonds and Deadlines is the history of Miriam Leslie's life. Her background is believed to have been of mixed racial heritage from New Orleans. She grew up very poor with a father always looking for a get rich scheme. Miriam spoke multiple languages and learned how to read a room early in life. She managed to live with E. G. Squier, her husband, while conducting a relationship with another man, Frank Leslie (who pursued her), in full view of society. Later, she ran several magazine publications at a time that this was unheard while married to Frank Leslie. She was in charge several publications during prosperity and restored them from bankruptcy caused by others multiple times. She aspired to be accepted by upper society around the world. Once she was able to get there she never wanted to lose her place, she kept fighting to maintain her position and be accepted until the end of her life.
The book presents the history of society and racial tensions which were often cruel, judgmental and dismissive. The writer through her depiction leads us to believe that there was a lot more racial antipathy across the nation at the time. This was not necessarily the north against the south in the matter of race. The inclusion of the use of cosmetics to hide the color of Miriam's skin in order to help her pass more as white or lighter skinned is fascinating. This is information that I had not read before.
There was an very interesting mention of the Presidential race between Tilden versus Rutherford B. Hayes. Republican operatives disputed election results in several states which in turn resulted a battleground across the country. The campaign was supposed to be a win for Tilden (184 Electoral votes of 185) and Hayes (165) which turned ugly and centered on three Southern states, with two different sets of returns, and a bribery blitz. The deadlock was finally resolved on February 27 in favor of Hayes, including a full scale constitutional crisis and the 'threat of a horrible civil war.' History does repeat itself, not always favorably.
The language at the time was different and a little cumbersome even though it is English. I was glad I could highlight the words I was unsure of and read the definition to help me understand how it was being used.
This is a very interesting story about history and how Miriam Leslie was more than just Frank Leslie's wife. Miriam was a person who contributed greatly and changed some of societal norms during her life.
I received an ARC from NetGalley for an unbiased review.
The book presents the history of society and racial tensions which were often cruel, judgmental and dismissive. The writer through her depiction leads us to believe that there was a lot more racial antipathy across the nation at the time. This was not necessarily the north against the south in the matter of race. The inclusion of the use of cosmetics to hide the color of Miriam's skin in order to help her pass more as white or lighter skinned is fascinating. This is information that I had not read before.
There was an very interesting mention of the Presidential race between Tilden versus Rutherford B. Hayes. Republican operatives disputed election results in several states which in turn resulted a battleground across the country. The campaign was supposed to be a win for Tilden (184 Electoral votes of 185) and Hayes (165) which turned ugly and centered on three Southern states, with two different sets of returns, and a bribery blitz. The deadlock was finally resolved on February 27 in favor of Hayes, including a full scale constitutional crisis and the 'threat of a horrible civil war.' History does repeat itself, not always favorably.
The language at the time was different and a little cumbersome even though it is English. I was glad I could highlight the words I was unsure of and read the definition to help me understand how it was being used.
This is a very interesting story about history and how Miriam Leslie was more than just Frank Leslie's wife. Miriam was a person who contributed greatly and changed some of societal norms during her life.
I received an ARC from NetGalley for an unbiased review.
May 29, 2022
Miriam Leslie was a woman with a bad start in life who wanted to be rich (she got her wish) and a Society celebrity (she did not get her wish). Leslie had to settle for being a publisher and company manager who made and lost several fortunes. While this is an impressive achievement for a woman in the 19th century Miriam Leslie was such a greedy, self deluded poseur that she is wearing out her welcome very quickly. It's an odd read. The book has some strange errors ("broncos" do not wear capes and dance in the streets...perhaps vaqueros do)...and the Democratic Presidential candidate in 1896 was named Bryan, not Byrant.) My biggest "problem" is author Betsy Prioleu's constant "use of quotation marks" for "even the most mundane things" in "nearly every sentence" so that I "got the feeling" that someone "was reading over my shoulder" while "moving their lips". It "becomes very annoying" but the book is generally good reading once she drops the affectation. Maybe her subject's pretensions rubbed off on her.
Mrs. Frank Leslie was a deeply unappealing woman for most of her life, but at the end of it she left her entire fortune to the women's suffrage movement, (she funded Elizabeth Cady Stanton's work for years, while printing twaddle about 'women needing to be ladies' 'gradual' granting of rights, diatribes against dirty foreigners and the unemployed whom, she argued, should be shot on sight...and outdated advice about courtly love while burning her way through four husbands and any number of lovers.) I don't have a problem with her private life but she was a notable hypocrite. Leslie's estate gave the organizers funds to campaign for the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the vote. So she is best known for her legacy.
It's an interesting read. I just wonder what happened to proofreaders and editors, that's all.
Mrs. Frank Leslie was a deeply unappealing woman for most of her life, but at the end of it she left her entire fortune to the women's suffrage movement, (she funded Elizabeth Cady Stanton's work for years, while printing twaddle about 'women needing to be ladies' 'gradual' granting of rights, diatribes against dirty foreigners and the unemployed whom, she argued, should be shot on sight...and outdated advice about courtly love while burning her way through four husbands and any number of lovers.) I don't have a problem with her private life but she was a notable hypocrite. Leslie's estate gave the organizers funds to campaign for the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the vote. So she is best known for her legacy.
It's an interesting read. I just wonder what happened to proofreaders and editors, that's all.
March 27, 2022
Welcome to the world of a remarkable woman - Mrs. Frank Leslie. The illegitimate biracial daughter of a slave and a dead beat father, she started life in poverty in New Orleans. She became a larger than life character during the Gilded Age and at the time of her death had enough wealth to will $1 million to support the suffragist movement and the 19th amendment. With four husbands and controlling the largest publishing empire of its day, she was a force to be reckoned with. Even though her husband, Frank Leslie started the publishing empire, at the time of his death that empire was on its last gasp. It was his wife who revived it, not once but twice and did it her way.
She loved men, many many men, was an actress in her youth, possibly a prostitute, as well. She had a love of fine fashion and took a yearly trip to Paris to have the House of Worth create her entire wardrobe for the year. Jewelry was another passion of hers and she had an enormous collection. Everything she did was scandalous and she was always reinventing her life story. It's a shame that history has relegated her to the shadows but this well written and painstakingly researched book brings her life onto the stage once more and I enjoyed it from start to finish.
My thanks to the publisher Abrams Press and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.
She loved men, many many men, was an actress in her youth, possibly a prostitute, as well. She had a love of fine fashion and took a yearly trip to Paris to have the House of Worth create her entire wardrobe for the year. Jewelry was another passion of hers and she had an enormous collection. Everything she did was scandalous and she was always reinventing her life story. It's a shame that history has relegated her to the shadows but this well written and painstakingly researched book brings her life onto the stage once more and I enjoyed it from start to finish.
My thanks to the publisher Abrams Press and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.
April 13, 2022
Diamonds and Deadlines by Betsy Prioleau is the first major biography of the glamorous and scandalous Miriam Leslie, titan of publishing and an unsung hero of women’s suffrage
Miriam Leslie was an entrepreneur and a newspaper publishing giant. I have to say I admired her character and personality and at the same time I found her a very complicated woman. Her life story and how she got to where she was is fascinating.
I enjoyed the opening and how the book started with her early life, she has a tumultuous life, she had so many lovers and she managed to have four husbands at a time that divorce was outrageous and not acceptable and was outrageous.
Miriam amassed a good fortune through her husbands and her publishing empire was through Frank Leslie, her third husband. But her accomplished and her achievements during Gilded Era was the result of her hard work till her last day.
I like strong females who are fighting for their life and do whatever it takes to survive. Most of her fight was social I think and her enormous donation to furtherance of the cause of Woman’s Suffrage, revolutionized the movement.
I don’t know how to write a proper review that explains how much I enjoyed this book. It’s a combination of biography, history and nonfiction.
Miriam Leslie was an entrepreneur and a newspaper publishing giant. I have to say I admired her character and personality and at the same time I found her a very complicated woman. Her life story and how she got to where she was is fascinating.
I enjoyed the opening and how the book started with her early life, she has a tumultuous life, she had so many lovers and she managed to have four husbands at a time that divorce was outrageous and not acceptable and was outrageous.
Miriam amassed a good fortune through her husbands and her publishing empire was through Frank Leslie, her third husband. But her accomplished and her achievements during Gilded Era was the result of her hard work till her last day.
I like strong females who are fighting for their life and do whatever it takes to survive. Most of her fight was social I think and her enormous donation to furtherance of the cause of Woman’s Suffrage, revolutionized the movement.
I don’t know how to write a proper review that explains how much I enjoyed this book. It’s a combination of biography, history and nonfiction.
April 10, 2024
This is the story of Miriam Leslie - a self-made woman who made herself into a larger-than-life publishing tycoon, with grit, effrontery, creativity, skill, hardheadedness, and tenacity. Born illegitimate (and probably the child of a feckless father and an enslaved mother), Miriam fought her entire life to overcome a bankrupt hardscrabble background and transform herself and her story into a glittering career. Starting as a young teenager, she overcame vast hardship to become a true tycoon, suffering any number of reverses along the way that she battled through. And when she died, in a final surprise, she left her huge fortune to women's suffrage, which caused a scandal and helped bankroll the final fight for the vote.
A well-written biography. Trying to keep track of the countless lovers and flirtations did become exhausting eventually, as the author goes into all their backstories and it's a Lot. But in general both the main biography and the historical contextualization were well executed. It was fascinating to see how Miriam was able to capitalize on huge news stories (like a presidential assassination) to save her papers just when things seemed darkest, as well as how she helped to frame the changing zeitgeist (and sometimes missed the boat).
A well-written biography. Trying to keep track of the countless lovers and flirtations did become exhausting eventually, as the author goes into all their backstories and it's a Lot. But in general both the main biography and the historical contextualization were well executed. It was fascinating to see how Miriam was able to capitalize on huge news stories (like a presidential assassination) to save her papers just when things seemed darkest, as well as how she helped to frame the changing zeitgeist (and sometimes missed the boat).
November 10, 2022
Miriam Leslie was a modern woman who lived during the Gilded Age. She was most likely at least partially black and illegitimate. Her mother was likely a slave. Nonetheless Miriam invented and reinvented herself over and over again. She built and lost fortunes and then built them again.
At one time she was likely a prostitute. She married the first time to gain a name. That marriage was annulled. She married a second time and divorced that husband to marry Frank Leslie. She had a multi-year dalliance with the poet of the Sierras, Joaquin Miller. She married and divorced Oscar Wilde's brother, Willie and had other romances as well.
After she married Frank Leslie they became force to behold in the world of publishing. After Frank's death Miriam did what no one thought possible and successfully ran his publishing business for many years.
She wanted love desperately but was duped several times by feckless men who primarily saw her as ready cash and not as an individual. She lied about her age, her birth, and darn near everything else in her life.
This is a very interesting story of a very complicated woman.
At one time she was likely a prostitute. She married the first time to gain a name. That marriage was annulled. She married a second time and divorced that husband to marry Frank Leslie. She had a multi-year dalliance with the poet of the Sierras, Joaquin Miller. She married and divorced Oscar Wilde's brother, Willie and had other romances as well.
After she married Frank Leslie they became force to behold in the world of publishing. After Frank's death Miriam did what no one thought possible and successfully ran his publishing business for many years.
She wanted love desperately but was duped several times by feckless men who primarily saw her as ready cash and not as an individual. She lied about her age, her birth, and darn near everything else in her life.
This is a very interesting story of a very complicated woman.
May 27, 2022
My general impression of this book is that Miriam Leslie was a very interesting and accomplished woman who left a huge bequest to the women's suffrage movement that played a key role in enactment of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. I wanted to get to know this woman, but somehow the book failed to deliver for me. I knew little about the gilded age or Miriam Leslie before reading the book, and I do think that I learned a lot of facts about them. But it felt more like learning lists of things, like in a school history book, rather than getting a real feeling for them. I found especially tiresome the constant descriptions of Miriam's clothes, what food she served at her social functions, and who came to them. I wanted to know more about the essence of Miriam, and especially about the evolution of her commitment to women's suffrage. Although I now feel that I know a lot ABOUT her, I don't feel that I know HER.
August 26, 2022
I usually enjoy a thoroughly researched biography. which this one is in spades! Miriam Leslie (only one of the names she went by in her life) was a force to be reckoned with: narcissistic, flamboyant, a consummate liar and a social climber, as well as a powerhouse in the NYC newspaper business throughout the Gilded Age. It is fortunate that she never had children; they could never have measured up to a woman like her. As reprehensible as her behavior was, this made a fascinating read: her outrageous escapades went on and on, making and squandering fortunes many times with little regard for how she affected others.
Right after I read this I went on to Behind a Mask; the Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott, and discovered that Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper had run a story contest in 1962 with a prize of $100, and Alcott won. I was glad to see that the Leslie's had done something worthwhile.
Right after I read this I went on to Behind a Mask; the Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott, and discovered that Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper had run a story contest in 1962 with a prize of $100, and Alcott won. I was glad to see that the Leslie's had done something worthwhile.
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April 1, 2022In this book, the author takes us through the glamorous and scandalous life of Mrs. Frank Leslie (let’s call her Miriam because a woman is more than her late husband’s name okay!) who successfully took over the country’s largest publishing agency and boldly ignored many of the societal expectations placed on women at the time.
Miriam was a badass leader who cared little of what others thought, flaunted her sexuality, and made a fortune, which she then donated to the women’s suffrage movement (nearly $22 million today). This donation and last act of power by Miriam helped secure the 19th amendment (the ultimate mic drop if you ask me).
Overall, I’m grateful to this author for introducing me to Miriam’s place in women’s history, but I think this book could have been less detailed/shorter for the overall story.
Miriam was a badass leader who cared little of what others thought, flaunted her sexuality, and made a fortune, which she then donated to the women’s suffrage movement (nearly $22 million today). This donation and last act of power by Miriam helped secure the 19th amendment (the ultimate mic drop if you ask me).
Overall, I’m grateful to this author for introducing me to Miriam’s place in women’s history, but I think this book could have been less detailed/shorter for the overall story.
May 22, 2022
This was a pretty interesting biography of a women that strived so hard to be remembered and commemorated by the world, but she never full achieved that feeling and got that fame and prestige that she so desperately wanted.
Miriam Leslie was a woman who came from a hard background and she seized every opportunity in sight to better herself and her circumstances in the eyes of the world. She went through several men, quite a few different scandals and pulled out some truly stunning business deals throughout her life.
This is an extremely well-written and put-together biography, but overall I had a hard time reading just based on the formatting of the story. The author puts Miriam Leslie's story together very well and does not shy away from the different stages of her life that she went through. However, I did not enjoy it as a whole book and would not reach for this again.
Miriam Leslie was a woman who came from a hard background and she seized every opportunity in sight to better herself and her circumstances in the eyes of the world. She went through several men, quite a few different scandals and pulled out some truly stunning business deals throughout her life.
This is an extremely well-written and put-together biography, but overall I had a hard time reading just based on the formatting of the story. The author puts Miriam Leslie's story together very well and does not shy away from the different stages of her life that she went through. However, I did not enjoy it as a whole book and would not reach for this again.
January 8, 2022
Diamonds and Deadlines is an interesting, fun biography about an historic figure that I'd never heard of before. Mrs. Frank Leslie was a fascinating person who lead a colorful, rags to riches life. I enjoyed the way this book was written. There was so much detail, not just about Mrs. Leslie, but also about those she interacted with, the cities she visited, and the times lived in. Sometimes, detail can just bog you down, but in this case, it brought the story to life. I really liked that it was clear when the author was giving researched information & when she was guessing about how or what might have happened. If you are interested in history, biography, or stories of strong women who succeeded despite societal expectations, I highly recommend this book.
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