Cover of What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age

What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age

In late-nineteenth-century Chicago, visionary retail tycoon Marshall Field made his fortune wooing women customers with his famous motto: "Give the lady what she wants." His legendary charm also won the heart of socialite Delia Spencer and led to an infamous love affair.

The night of the Great Fire, as seventeen-year-old Delia watches the flames rise and consume what was the pioneer town of Chicago, she can't imagine how much her life, her city, and her whole world are about to change. Nor can she guess that the agent of that change will not simply be the fire, but more so the man she meets that night....

Read more

Leading the way in rebuilding after the fire, Marshall Field reopens his well-known dry goods store and transforms it into something the world has never seen before: a glamorous palace of a department store. He and his powerhouse coterie—including Potter Palmer and George Pullman—usher in the age of robber barons, the American royalty of their generation.

But behind the opulence, their private lives are riddled with scandal and heartbreak. Delia and Marshall first turn to each other out of loneliness, but as their love deepens, they will stand together despite disgrace and ostracism, through an age of devastation and opportunity, when an adolescent Chicago is transformed into the gleaming White City of the Chicago's World's Fair of 1893.

Genre
historical fictionvictorianromancehistorical romancevictorian romance
Themes
american history
Setting
19th centuryvictorianchicagoillinoisUSA
Subject
history
Audience
adult
Length
long · 443 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Bright and Distant Shores Shares historical fiction, fiction, chicago
  2. The Sharp Hook of Love: A Novel of Heloise and Abelard Shares historical fiction, romance, fiction
  3. The Spymaster's Daughter Shares historical fiction, fiction, romance
  4. Fallen Beauty Shares historical fiction, fiction, adult

“People who read What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Girl on the Golden Coin: A Novel of Frances Stuart
  2. Fool's Gold
  3. The Pretender's Lady
  4. Secret of a Thousand Beauties

“If you want more of the same (historical fiction about american history), start with these.”

  1. The Age of Desire
  2. The Accidental Empress
  3. Trades of the Flesh
  4. The Gilded Hour

“If it was the romance that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Peace Lily
  2. The Serpent and the Staff
  3. The Painted Lady
  4. The Old Priory

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Give the Lady What She Wants: The Story of Marshall Field & Company
  2. Fire
  3. Prada and Prejudice
  4. Children of the Wild West