| Archie and Amelie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age | 
                    
                    
                                                    
                                | Authors: | Lucey, Donna M. | 
                                                                        
                                                                            
                                | Publisher: | Crown | 
                                                                            
                                | BISAC/Subject: | BIO017000, BIO013000, HIS054000 | 
                                                                        
                            | ISBN: | 9780307345837, Related ISBNs:                                    0307345831, 0307351459, 1400048524, 9780307345837, 9780307351456 | 
                        
                            | Classification: | Non-Fiction | 
                        
                            | Number of pages: | 352, | 
                                                                            
                                | Audience: | General/trade | 
                        
                    
                
                                    Synopsis: Filled with glamour, mystery, and madness, Archie and Amélie is the true story chronicling a tumultuous love affair in the Gilded Age. 
John Armstrong "Archie" Chanler was an heir to the Astor fortune,   an eccentric, dashing, and handsome millionaire. Amélie Rives, Southern belle   and the goddaughter of Robert E. Lee, was a daring author, a stunning temptress,   and a woman ahead of her time. 
 Archie and   Amélie seemed made for each other—both were passionate, intense, and driven by emotion—but   the very things that brought them together would soon tear them apart. Their marriage   began with a “secret” wedding that found its way onto the front page of the New York   Times, to the dismay of Archie’s relatives and Amélie’s many gentleman friends. To   the world, the couple appeared charmed, rich, and famous; they moved in social circles   that included Oscar Wilde, Teddy Roosevelt, and Stanford White. But although their   love was undeniable, they tormented each other, and their private life was troubled   from the start. 
 They were the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald of their day—a celebrated   couple too dramatic and unconventional to last—but their tumultuous story has largely   been forgotten. Now, Donna M. Lucey vividly brings to life these extraordinary lovers   and their sweeping, tragic romance.
 
 “In the Virginia hunt country just outside   of Charlottesville, where I live, the older people still tell stories of a strange   couple who died some two generations ago. The stories involve ghosts, the mysterious   burning of a church, a murder at a millionaire’s house, a sensational lunacy trial,   and a beautiful, scantily clad young woman prowling her gardens at night as if she   were searching for something or someone—or trying to walk off the effects of the   morphine that was deranging her. I was inclined to dismiss all of this as tall tales   Virginians love to spin out; but when I looked into these yarns I found proof that   they were true. . . .” —Donna M. Lucey on Archie and Amélie