HEIRESSES: MARRIAGE INHERITANCE AND CARIBBEAN SLAVERY (HB)

Following 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.