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Article: Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age
- Article from:
- The Virginia Quarterly Review
- Article date:
- April 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright University of Virginia Spring 2007. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age, by Donna M. Lucey. Crown, June 2006. $25.95
This captivating dual biography of John Armstrong Chanler and Amélie Rives should command respect in any age. Their love was mutual and tempestuous, if star-crossed; the madness (his) was court certified. Their Gilded Age was enlivened by the likes of Oscar Wilde, Teddy Roosevelt, and Stanford White. An heir to the Astor fortune, Chanler was immensely wealthy, handsome, daring, eccentric, and exceedingly charitable. Rives was of an old and meritorious Virginia family, a goddaughter of Robert E. Lee, and a celebrated, and some thought scandalous, author who never hesitated to employ her charm ...