{"product_id":"9780861548019","title":"Heiresses : Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery","description":"\u003ch3\u003eAuthor:  Kaufmann, Miranda \u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eWest Indies\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 4 September 2025 by Oneworld Publications in the United Kingdom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHardback | 544 pages\u003cbr\u003e241 x 165 x 48 | 808g\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMeet the heiresses. Their dresses are the latest fashion, their rooms Mayfair's most luxurious, their suitors Britain's most powerful men.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheir fortunes – blood and sugar.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'A sobering and significant achievement, this is a book you need to read.' Lucy WorsleyGeorgian heiresses are inescapable in British culture. They flutter through Jane Austen’s novels and countless period dramas. Their portraits – painted by Gainsborough, Zoffany, Reynolds – crowd our museums while their lavish estates pepper the countryside. However, a less genteel story lurks beneath the veneer – those glorious balls, dresses and dowries were funded by the exploitation of enslaved men, women and children.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFollowing the lives of nine heiresses and tracing their tainted money from its origins in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, Miranda Kaufmann reveals a murky world of inheritance, fortune-hunting and human exploitation. From Jane Leigh Perrot, Jane Austen’s light-fingered aunt, to Elizabeth Vassall Fox, who faked her daughter’s death to maintain custody during a tumultuous divorce, Heiresses traces the often scandalous lives of the women who helped build Britain’s empire.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKaufmann also pieces together the lives of the people these heiresses and their families enslaved. There’s BetsyNewton, who escaped from Barbados to London to confront her enslavers face-to-face. Meanwhile in Jamaica, Susanna Augier became a powerful landowner, inheriting her white father’s properties. Her daughter, an eligible heiress, would marry into the British aristocracy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnlightening, provocative and masterfully researched, Heiresses offers a vital history of enslavement in Britain and the Caribbean.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e***'A startling insight into the lives of the real “Mrs Rochesters”. The role of women in plantation slavery, as perpetrators and victims is uncovered by a historian at the height of her powers.' Anita Anand, author of The Patient Assassin and co-host of Empire'A perfect balance of critical humour and searing historical insight. A must-read.' Paterson Joseph, actor and author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho'Vivid, shocking and compulsively readable... Miranda Kaufmann is not just a fine investigative historian – she is a superb story-teller.' Alex Renton, author of Blood Legacy\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bookshop Mold","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55262781342072,"sku":"9780861548019","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.mold-bookshop.co.uk\/products\/9780861548019","provider":"The Bookshop. Mold.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}