BOOK THAT INSPIRED DOWNTON ABBEY Here is the American Heiress's story. Filled with tales of wealth and marriage, sex and snobbery - and 100-year-old gossip that's still scorching - To Marry an English Lord is heavily illustrated and an energetic presentation of popular history

From the Gilded Age until 1914, more than 100 American heiresses invaded Britannia and swapped dollars for titles - just like Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, the first of the Downton Abbey characters Julian Fellowes was inspired to create after reading To Marry An English Lord. Filled with vivid personalities, gossipy anecdotes, grand houses, and a wealth of period detail - plus photographs, illustrations, quotes, and the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette - To Marry An English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible.