{"product_id":"when-the-astors-owned-new-york-blue-bloods-and-grand-hotels-in-a-gilded-age-9780452288584","title":"When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this marvelous anecdotal history, Justin Kaplan--Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Mark Twain--vividly brings to life a grand story from the glittering Gilded Age.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Endowed with the largest private fortunes of their day, cousins John Jacob Astor IV and William Waldorf Astor vied for primacy in New York society, producing the grandest hotels ever seen in a marriage of ostentation and efficiency that transformed American social behavior. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Kaplan exposes it all in exquisite detail, taking readers from the 1890s to the Roaring Twenties in a combination of biography, history, architectural appreciation, and pure reading pleasure\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJustin Kaplan was an editor, biographer, and author of \u003cb\u003eMr. Clemens and Mark Twain\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eWalt Whitman: A Life\u003c\/b\u003e, among other books. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in 2014.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Penguin Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50627684827410,"sku":"9780452288584","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_70076094-5e36-4b25-9291-619a1e0d5bee.jpg?v=1732708457","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/when-the-astors-owned-new-york-blue-bloods-and-grand-hotels-in-a-gilded-age-9780452288584","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}