The American Heiress

First published in the UK as My Last Duchess in 2010, The American Heiress (2011) is a novel by Daisy Goodwin. Set in the same era and social class as much of Henry James's early work, Goodwin’s The American Heiress also follows James's lead in placing at the center of its plot a particularly Jamesian protagonist: nouveau riche American ingénue Cora Cash, whose trip overseas plunges her into an Old World milieu of old money, secrets, and social climbing. Goodwin does not pretend to break new ground in her topic but generally presents it in historically accurate detail. Besides a number of novels, Goodwin, a writer and television producer, has compiled eight anthologies of poetry. She is the author of Victoria (2016), about Queen Victoria, and the writer of the TV series of the same name, which has been broadcast in the UK (on ITV) since 2016, and in the US (on PBS/Masterpiece) since 2017.

Eighteen-year-old Cora Cash longs – if not quite as badly as her mother – for one thing above all else: to obtain a titled Old World husband to become bona fide. She has good prospects. Cora is young, beautiful, and from one of the wealthiest American families. Her family mansion exceeds even the Vanderbilts' in size and ostentation. In pursuit of her quarry, she and her mother travel to England, where, sure enough, they find what they are seeking in Ivo, the Duke of Wareham. The poor Duke of Wareham, despite his nobility, has fallen on hard times, so the advantage of making a match with Cora is obvious. Before long, they end up married, and though Cora finds herself wanting to love Ivo, he quickly becomes moody and withdrawn. Not accepted by the English wait staff, she disliked by Ivo's mother, the formidable Double Duchess. Cora had known that the marriage was a business transaction to both parties – a trading of money for status – but she is still saddened when the initial glow leaves the young marriage, and the realities of her situation set in.

Eventually, Cora conceives a child – a son, and therefore heir – by Ivo, and their relationship seems to be on the mend; for much of the pregnancy, Ivo had left Cora mostly deserted. Afterward, the Duke and Duchess of Wareham are invited to a gala for the Prince of Wales. There, Cora discovers that most of the party – and indeed, most of English high society – believe that Ivo has been carrying on an affair with Charlotte, a woman Cora has come to see as a friend. Cora's former American suitor, Teddy, recalls to her a tender scene between Charlotte and Ivo that took place at a train station, just before Ivo was to set off to New York to marry his new American bride. He presents this as evidence that the rumors about Ivo and Charlotte are true. Blindsided by the news, Cora questions her decisions: should she remain with Ivo in what may be a loveless marriage, but one that provides her the social clout she and her family has always craved, or should she leave Ivo and begin again with Teddy?



Cora speaks with Ivo, and he confesses that he had been in a romance with Charlotte at one time. However, he swears to her that their relationship ended after his marriage to Cora. In the end, Cora makes the decision to remain with Ivo. Charlotte is dismissed, and Teddy, unfortunately, is left waiting at a train station for a rebounding Cora who never arrives.

Goodwin's The American Heiress seems, in generic terms, to sit between light historical fiction and popular romance, but without quite meeting the expectations of either. It wears its literary influences on its sleeve, and it has been argued that this is an attempt to make up for a relative lack of plot or believable characters. The most interesting thing about The American Heiress as a modern work is its setting – turn of the century America is a time that is now far enough in the past that no one alive today actually experienced it, so it is inaccurate to say that anyone alive today could feel nostalgia for it. Rather, The American Heiress largely romanticizes the era, at least in terms of its aesthetics and the supposed lifestyles of the wealthy. The struggles of servants and the lower classes are taken as a matter of course. In its emphasis only on a glamorous subset of a historical population and its reliance on well-worn melodramatic tropes, The American Heiress is perhaps best classed as a fairytale.