The big spenders
By: Lucius Beebe.
Publisher: Axios Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Mount Jackson, VA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 510
ISBN-13: 9781604190069
Subjects: Upper class -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Upper class -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Rich people -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Rich people -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Luxury -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Luxury -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 20th century; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
Description: "THE BIG SPENDERS was Lucius Beebe's last, and many think his best, book. In it he describes the lavish spending of the Gilded Age, not from a puritanical perspective, but rather as a theater critic might. One spending spree might be called excessive and tasteless; another might have been excessive, but it was amusing, or a grand spectacle, and tastefully done. Beebe enjoys it all all immensely, and so do his readers. Whether it is James Gordon Bennett buying a Monte Carlo restaurant because he was refused a seat by the window, Boni de Castellane spending million of robber baron Jay Gould's moey in record time, Spencer Penrose leaving a bedside memo reminding himself not to spend more than million the next day, or a legion of high-fliers brushing their teeth in vintage champagne after dining on a gold table service on board an immense yacht, the stories are both humorous and enlightening."--BOOK COVER.
Notes: Originally published: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1966.

Includes bibliographical references and index.