Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution

by Amanda Vaill

“An engaging blend of perceptive biography and vivid narrative history.” (Kirkus, starred review)

Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, born to wealth and privilege in New York's Hudson Valley during the latter half of the 18th century, were raised to make good marriages and supervise substantial households. Instead they became embroiled in the turmoil of America's insurrection against Great Britain — and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them.
Glamorous Angelica, who sought fulfillment through attachments to powerful men, eloped at twenty with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, first in Paris, then in London, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales. Eliza, one year her junior, too candid for flirtation and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless illegitimate outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career. But after his appointment as America's first treasury secretary, she was challenged by the controversies in which he became involved, not the least of which was the attraction that grew between him and her adored sister.
When tragedy followed, everything changed for both women: one deprived of her animating spirit, the other improbably gaining a new, self-determined life. "You would not have suffered if you had married into a family less near the sun," wrote Angelica to Eliza, "but then [you would have missed] the pride, the pleasure, the nameless satisfactions."
Drawing on deep archival research, including never-published records and letters, Amanda Vaill interweaves this family drama with its historical context, creating a narrative with the sweep and intimacy of a nineteenth-century novel. Full of battles and dinner parties, murky politics and transparent frocks, fierce loyalty and betrayals both public and personal, Pride and Pleasure brings to two extraordinary American heroines to life.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, American History, American Revolution, Audiobook

720 pages, Hardcover

First published October 21, 2025

About the author

Amanda Vaill's PRIDE AND PLEASURE: THE SCHUYLER SISTERS IN AN AGE OF REVOLUTION, a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award, was published in October 2025. She is the author of three previous biographies — HOTEL FLORIDA, SOMEWHERE, and the best-selling EVERYBODY WAS SO YOUNG, a finalist for the NBCC — and has co-authored, contributed to, or edited a number of other books in the field of arts and culture. She is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter and her journalism and criticism have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Town and Country, and New York. A past fellow of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, she lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Tara Cignarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pride and Pleasure by Amanda Vaille
Writing: A-
Information: B+
Format: B
Best Aspect: Very different nonfiction history book. Don’t let the 700+ pages scare you off about 25% of it is notes.
Worst Aspect: This was so detailed and so long and history of this depth is not my preferred reading.
Recommend: Yes.
NetGalley ARC release 10/21/25

[Laura✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amanda Vaill’s Pride and Pleasure is a sweeping historical narrative that chronicles the lives of the Schuyler sisters, namely Eliza, and their close family and friends. With meticulous research, Vaill brings the past to life in a way that is both intellectually satisfying and engaging.

What Vaill did particularly well was weave the personal stories of these historical figures with the national and global forces that shaped the era. Readers will not only discover new perspectives on the lives of Eliza and Alexander and their inner circle but also gain a deeper understanding of the wars, revolutions, pandemics, and recessions that shaped their world.

While the book is a bit of an investment in time (it's a big one!), it did keep my interest and gave me many new insights into the family and era.

This was an ARC review for NetGalley.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recording 4, book 5 stars. This is a shared biography of the Schuyler sisters, most famous for their connection to Alexander Hamilton and newly so thanks to Lin Manuel Miranda. Eliza is the focus, both for her much longer lifetime and her marriage to Hamilton, but Angelica gets her share of attention too. (less so Peggy, who seems to have sadly become an invalid.) For readers of Revolutionary-era history much will be familiar (including the opening sequence of the Hamilton-Burr duel) but the research is deep and the writing is extremely accessible. It moves faster than the page count suggests.
The recording was mostly very good - I very much liked the different narrators for the sections focused on the Schuylers vs sections focused more on the history of the period. Both readers were very good, without a ton of acting but occasionally notable accents, especially French. There are a handful of curiously wrong pronounciations, often of proper nouns - most egregiously saying ConCORDE (that's an airplane) instead of CONkerd (Mass). I feel strongly that if you're going to read a book about the American Revolution, you should get the place names right.
All in all, a very enjoyable listen. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

[Nicole Perkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amanda Vaill’s book “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution” is an excellent account of the American Revolution, the events leading up to it, and the years after, with a focus on one of the foremost families of the time. Angelica, Elizabeth, and Margarita Schuyler were associated with (and married to) some of the most influential people involved with this country’s rise to independence. I have little interest in American history (mostly because it’s an on-going saga of privileged people behaving in appalling ways and doing their best to crush people seen as “less than”); however, Vaill’s book is attention-grabbing, informative, and fast-moving, not so fast that readers are confronted with confusing timelines, but fast enough that you don’t have time to get bored while reading of the various battles, meetings, and political appointments of the key players (all men, of course). It would be interesting to see what the Schuyler sisters would have been if they lived in later centuries; in the eighteenth century they could only be “helpmeets,” overseeing the house, tending to the children, and sparkling at social events geared toward advancing their husbands’ careers. In the nineteenth century they could have been suffragettes, and politicians in the twentieth century and today.

[Deborah Getzoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-researched page turner

Highly detailed and well told history and family history coinciding with current interest in the American Revolution in other media. Beautifully written with important details about Hamilton‘s wife and other women of that period and the impact they had on historical events and the future. Beautifully written and hard to put down.

[Lorie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the audio book. Focused on Eliza & Angelica Schuyler, it adds both facts and perspective to this period of history. Richly detailed. Big personalities. Battles—military & political—epidemics, slavery, finances, infidelity, tragedies and triumphs. These folks wrote a lot of letters. Recommend.

[Lou Chodosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly researched; a look at early America from a different perspective . Adds to my knowledge of the era.

[Jay Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heard about this book on either an NPR or NYT Daily broadcast - and being a big fan of Hamilton, I wanted to read this take on the Schuyler sisters.

It's interestingly a lot more actual history than I thought - the previews gave me the impression that much of the work was 'implied fiction'. Excellent example of historical fiction, if this is indeed the case. Loved the interplay btwn the sisters, as well as the relatively deep dive into their parents and spouses. I didn't know much about older sisters' husband; that story was likely deserving of a wholly new book.

Love how the story carried thru the end of Eliza's long life - nice coda to the overall story.

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the eARC!

Vaill's love of the subject is abundantly proven in this text. While there was too much detail for me, a very amateur historian, I still found the book interesting. It was nice to have another viewpoint on Eliza (other than just Hamilton).
Vaill does a fantastic job of weaving the larger historical context into the lives of the Hamilton sisters.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a solid chance you're reading this because you want to know about the Schuyler sisters after having seen Hamilton, and you know what? No shame in that. Valli gets to dive in deep to the familial movements of the Schuyler sisters across their lifetimes, and if nothing else, it's absolutely fascinating to see how the history actually played out. It does get a bit sad, but as it turns out, when you outlive most of the rest of your family (Eliza) in a time of massive social upheaval, it does get a bit depressing. Great read regardless.

[Sarah Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this biography in exchange for an honest review.

"You would not have suffered if you had married into a family less near the sun, but then [you would have missed] the pride, the pleasure, the nameless satisfactions." Angelica to her sister Eliza.

This biography follows the lives of the two oldest Schuyler sisters, Angelica and Elizabeth, who were born into a wealthy New York family in the late 18th century. Angelica eloped at twenty and led a glamorous and luxurious life in Paris and London before returning home to America. Eliza, one year younger than Angelica, married a penniless illegitimate outsider named Alexander Hamilton. Eliza devoted her life to her husband's career and raising their children, only to be betrayed by his infidelities, which seem to have likely included an indiscretion with her own sister Angelica. After Alexander's untimely death in a duel, Eliza worked tirelessly to drag her family out of debt and see to her children's futures.

I have never had more complicated feelings about a biography! I was absolutely fascinated by all that I learned about the two sisters. This book even made me weep at one point, when Eliza is called to the bed of her dying son and lays down with him to hold him all night until his death. I was outraged on Angelica's behalf upon learning that her husband had married her under a false name and didn't reveal his true identity until she was pregnant with their fourth child. I felt Eliza's despair so keenly in the aftermath of her husband's death and as she toiled to provide for her family. This felt well researched, and it was clear that the author has spent siginficant time combing through the family's correspondence and the historical record to meticulously detail their lives.

But I was also tormented by way too much historical context, which overwhelmed the biography of the sisters. While informative, I wish there had been far less information about the state of the United States and random asides about different important American historical figures. While the sisters did know many of these people, it deviated far too greatly from the main focus of the book far too often for me. This is an immense book at over 700 pages. Fortunately, a head's up to other ebook readers, the text of the book does end at 80%, which shaved off an estimated nearly three hours from the total. Much of this read felt like a slog, and not because of great details about the sisters' lives but because of lots of historical anecdotes. I do think balancing the historical backdrop with the person's life is a delicate prospect for biographers and sympathize with the difficulty of wanting to set the ladies' lives in a greater context.

Much of this book was written in the first person, which I have never encountered in a biography before, and certainly not a historical one. I believe this was meant to put the reader in the moment with Angelica and Eliza, but it still felt like an odd choice. At some point, the biography deviated from this back into past tense. I did read an advance copy so the final version may differ.

[Roberts Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill is a sweeping, intimate dual biography that reclaims two of America’s most fascinating women from the margins of history. Through meticulous research and luminous prose, Vaill brings Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler vividly to life sisters bound by loyalty and brilliance, yet divided by temperament, circumstance, and love.

Set against the grand tumult of America’s founding, Vaill’s narrative reads with the richness of a novel and the authority of a historian. Angelica’s transatlantic glamour a woman moving through drawing rooms that shaped nations contrasts beautifully with Eliza’s quieter, steadfast devotion to Alexander Hamilton and to the ideals of the new republic. Yet both women emerge as agents of their own destiny, navigating a world that demanded submission and rewarded defiance.

With elegant balance and emotional precision, Vaill captures the personal costs of ambition and fidelity, fame and scandal, in an age when revolution extended beyond politics into the private realm. Readers of Stacy Schiff’s The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams or Chernow’s Hamilton will find Pride and Pleasure equally immersive a portrait of courage, contradiction, and female resilience in the crucible of history.

[James Grissom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will be writing at greater length about Amanda Vaill's PRIDE AND PLEASURE. There is so much to write about, as well as to savor. We have read about the declining standards in our schools, and how so few students have a minimal grasp of our nation's history, much less that of the world. PRIDE AND PLEASURE is a brilliant and panoramic book that details the birth of America, as well as the scandals and the liberations and the rumors that ran like a frayed thread through this formation. If you approach PRIDE AND PLEASURE from an academic viewpoint, you will be satisfied: Vaill is an exhaustive researcher, and documents and details have been unearthed for the first time. If you approach it as someone who wants an impossible to put down read, then you're in luck. Imagine if Ron Chernow went dancing with Shonda Rimes, and you have an idea of the sweep of PRIDE AND PLEASURE. I cannot recommend it enough, and the fall season is suddenly worth living for.

[Rena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shines the spotlight on these incredibly interesting girls as they grow into formidable women. The gravitational pull into the famous-man and war narratives drifts too much of the book away from the sisters. Yes, the book is too long and discursive as a result, and it's still a vivid portrait of the sisters and their families. I would have loved it that much more with a strong editorial hand. These women deserve every page of this book.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am rounding up from 3.5 stars. The book could have used some editing but the story of Angelika, Eliza and Peggy (yes I am singing the song in my head) is riveting. Needless to say Eliza is the true hero of this story as we who have seen Hamilton know. She was so ahead of her time and the men were shadows behind her (including Hamilton and her father General Schuyler). The book dragged at times but in the end I did like it.

[Alexa Reid Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a unique and fascinating biography of the female counterparts to the founding fathers. I was completely engrossed and learned so much more about the layers and complexities of the interpersonal dynamics of the time - between colleagues, rivals, siblings, spouses. Highly recommend for any fan of Colonial American history!

[Clare]

Good Christ, one of the narrators on the audiobook is the worst reader I have ever heard. It was like.... charitable condescension, or the tone of one who is concern-trolling. Very ew. So much ew.

[Tom Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary narrative biography and history that puts the lives of the Schuyler Sisters (Eliza, Angelica, and, yes, Peggy) against the background of their times. The women and their families (including Hamilton, of course, but also Angelica's war-profiteering husband) come brilliantly to life; and a surprise is how engrossing Eliza's story becomes in the half-century since Hamilton;s death. (She died at 97, the last survivor of the generation of the founders of the U.S.) The book reminds me of Vanity Fair in its epic sweep, its delicious detail of people and fashion and things. You'll learn new (and unattractive) things about Jefferson, Madison, and the particularly loathsome Monroe; but you'll also be entertained by wild escapades involving Lafayette; and, on more than one occasion, deeply moved, especially toward the end. The book reads so well one sometimes forgets it's nonfiction; but the notes attest to the research that went into it--and include corrections, some of them a bit arch, of mistakes others have made--including some who underestimated Eliza's vitality and brains.