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Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners
In an engaging book that sweeps from the Gilded Age to the 1960s, award-winning author Laura Claridge presents the first authoritative biography of Emily Post , who changed the mindset of millions of Americans with Etiquette , a perennial bestseller and touchstone of proper behavior.
A daughter of high society and one of Manhattan’s most sought-after debutantes, Emily Price married financier Edwin Post. It was a hopeful union that ended in scandalous divorce. But the trauma forced Emily Post to become her own person. After writing novels for fifteen years, Emily took on a different sort of project. When it debuted in 1922, Etiquette represented a fifty-year-old woman at her wisest–and a country at its wildest. Claridge addresses the secret of Etiquette ’s tremendous success and gives us a panoramic view of the culture from which it took its shape, as its author meticulously updated her book twice a decade to keep it consistent with America’s constantly changing social landscape. Now, nearly fifty years after Emily Post’s death, we still feel her enormous influence on how we think Best Society should behave .
A daughter of high society and one of Manhattan’s most sought-after debutantes, Emily Price married financier Edwin Post. It was a hopeful union that ended in scandalous divorce. But the trauma forced Emily Post to become her own person. After writing novels for fifteen years, Emily took on a different sort of project. When it debuted in 1922, Etiquette represented a fifty-year-old woman at her wisest–and a country at its wildest. Claridge addresses the secret of Etiquette ’s tremendous success and gives us a panoramic view of the culture from which it took its shape, as its author meticulously updated her book twice a decade to keep it consistent with America’s constantly changing social landscape. Now, nearly fifty years after Emily Post’s death, we still feel her enormous influence on how we think Best Society should behave .
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
54 people are currently reading
1321 people want to read
About the author
Laura Claridge
8 books26 followersLaura Claridge has written books ranging from feminist theory to biography and popular culture, most recently the story of an American icon, Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners (Random House), for which she received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. This project also received the J. Anthony Lukas Prize for a Work in Progress, administered by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Born in Clearwater, Florida, Laura Claridge received her Ph.D. in British Romanticism and Literary Theory from the University of Maryland in 1986. She taught in the English departments at Converse and Wofford colleges in Spartanburg, SC, and was a tenured professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis until 1997.
She has been a frequent writer and reviewer for the national press, appearing in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Vogue, Los Angeles Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, and Polish. She has appeared frequently in the national media, including NBC, CNN, BBC, CSPAN, and NPR and such widely watched programs as the Today Show.
Laura Claridge’s biography of iconic publisher Blanche Knopf, The Lady with the Borzoi, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux April, 2016.
Laura Claridge and her husband live in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Born in Clearwater, Florida, Laura Claridge received her Ph.D. in British Romanticism and Literary Theory from the University of Maryland in 1986. She taught in the English departments at Converse and Wofford colleges in Spartanburg, SC, and was a tenured professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis until 1997.
She has been a frequent writer and reviewer for the national press, appearing in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Vogue, Los Angeles Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, and Polish. She has appeared frequently in the national media, including NBC, CNN, BBC, CSPAN, and NPR and such widely watched programs as the Today Show.
Laura Claridge’s biography of iconic publisher Blanche Knopf, The Lady with the Borzoi, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux April, 2016.
Laura Claridge and her husband live in New York’s Hudson Valley.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews
September 2, 2018
I had collected old Etiquette books for the longest time. I was fascinated with the manners of those old days, especially when housekeepers and servants were mentioned. My collection is boxed away and I can’t wait to dig them out. Not sure how many I still have. I did unearth the 1942 war time edition.
The book was low key and had lots of history. I couldn’t wait to get to the Etiquette book creation. It did surprise me how well it did. As did her popularity. For me this was a story about a woman who quietly influenced a relatively new America.
She was a product of the South and married well, or so she thought. Her husband had other interests and drifted. It certainly was interesting how the rich would pay people to stay quiet back then. And even more interesting that Emily’s husband decided to end the blackmail deals with his own sting operation and Emily having to go along with it. She was stoic throughout but held a grudge.
Of interest to me was her love of architecture, just like her father. She was quite talented in that field. Her family designed Tuxedo Park in NY. Which was not too far from where I lived. I knew it was ritzy, and now know the history. She was also an accomplished fiction author. The etiquette book was a suggestion that really took off.
She had quite a life. She was fortunate to be able to do as she pleased and was not to be pushed around if she wanted to do something. I was especially impressed at how she did away with her book agent and negotiated the money she wanted. Not the normal type woman of that day. She was described as practical, pleasant and likeable. She did like the limelight and certainly did her best to push her books and eventually she maintained her celebrity status.
The book was low key and had lots of history. I couldn’t wait to get to the Etiquette book creation. It did surprise me how well it did. As did her popularity. For me this was a story about a woman who quietly influenced a relatively new America.
She was a product of the South and married well, or so she thought. Her husband had other interests and drifted. It certainly was interesting how the rich would pay people to stay quiet back then. And even more interesting that Emily’s husband decided to end the blackmail deals with his own sting operation and Emily having to go along with it. She was stoic throughout but held a grudge.
Of interest to me was her love of architecture, just like her father. She was quite talented in that field. Her family designed Tuxedo Park in NY. Which was not too far from where I lived. I knew it was ritzy, and now know the history. She was also an accomplished fiction author. The etiquette book was a suggestion that really took off.
She had quite a life. She was fortunate to be able to do as she pleased and was not to be pushed around if she wanted to do something. I was especially impressed at how she did away with her book agent and negotiated the money she wanted. Not the normal type woman of that day. She was described as practical, pleasant and likeable. She did like the limelight and certainly did her best to push her books and eventually she maintained her celebrity status.
June 6, 2009
I love biographies,love the Gilded Age scene and, believe it or not, have one of Emily Post's early etiquette books, bequeathed to me from my grandmother. Frankly, it is a better read that this biography. The first half was fairly interesting as it went into detail about the early years of Mrs. Post's life in the age of sevants,formal teas, and limitless wealth But like the majority of other reviewers, I found that the second half of the book really started to drag and I found my attention wandering. I barely scanned the final three chapters and kept thinking about the next book I was planning to read. This is not a bad book, it is just not a particularly good book.
September 4, 2019
For those that dont know who Emily Post was, she was an author who is best known for her books on etiquette. Born in 1872 and died in 1960, a large part of this book takes place at the turn of the century. Emily was a strong woman, ahead of her time. She was divorced and worked outside of the home when most women didnt. Most books written about this time portray poverty but Emily never wanted for anything. She saw a lot of history in her lifetime. It made me think about what it must have been like to live through the Roaring Twenties, the Depression, the Dust Bowl Days, two world wars, Hitler, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt (who she did not like), the invention of radio and television and much more that is mentioned throughout the book. Emily was an interesting woman. The book is long and sometimes tedious but worth the time to read.
February 26, 2016
Born in 1872, Emily Price Post was the only child of the prominent architect Bruce Price and his wife Josephine. Emily grew up in New York, friends with the Astors, Roosevelts, Morgans, and Vanderbilts. She became a sought-after debutante, before marrying Edwin Price when she was just eighteen. Emily adored her father her whole life and likely sought to replicate this relationship in her marriage, yet it was clear from the start that Emily and Edwin were ill-suited and he took to increasingly spending much of his time away from home. Although blessed with two sons, the couple eventually divorced. Yet her divorce, which she refused to talk about until her death, freed Emily from her role of wife to become a celebrated author and radio star, whose name is still synonymous with manners even today.
Emily was not the stern code-enforcing etiquette queen that many, even in her own lifetime, made her out to be. Indeed, she arrived at etiquette only after pursuing many of her other interests. Early on, she had a great love for acting and, following in her father's footsteps, architecture. She took great interest in personally designing her own clothes, which she then had made in Paris houses. She also delighted in keeping detailed accounts of her wardrobe, household, and activities and indeed had a "near compulsion to record the minutiae of her everyday life" (81). Before she was known for Etiquette, she was known for her best-selling fiction. In fact, her first novel was inspired by letters she had written home to her parents while traveling. Her mother bragged on how well written and vivid the letters were to a close family friend who was a published author, who helped introduce Emily to publishers.
Only after writing several novels did Emily begin work on Etiquette, for which she is chiefly remembered. Yet writing about social etiquette likely came easy to Emily, who had a keen interest in making her household and guests feel at ease. In 1901, a young house guest came to Emily for advice: "the girl had approached Emily in hopes that the older woman, whose taste she greatly admired and whose friendliness had encouraged her, would teach her society manners" (146). Emily delighted in helping the girl navigate the social scene, perhaps explaining the source of her early interest in helping to guide others. This dictate of always making others feel at ease and avoiding embarrassing others became the golden standard throughout her years of championing the cause of etiquette. Furthermore, she proved more than capable of changing with the times, substantially editing her rules every few years and stressing the need to be flexible. It was this book that made Emily Post famous and earned her book the honor of being "second only to the Bible as the book most often stolen from public libraries" (261).
Emily spent the rest of her life until her death in 1960 immersed in her work and spending time with friends and family. She was a well known radio host and wrote a daily advice column that at one point was distributed "to ninety-eight newspapers, with 5.5 million readers" (399). Her famous book never sold less than 30,000 copies a year in her lifetime. The little girl born to a privileged family in the wake of the Civil War ultimately proved adept at changing with the times, adapting to technology and changing social mores, and ultimately made a name for herself that is far more lasting even than her father's.
My one complaint with this book is that it feels vastly impersonal, likely due to Emily's close-lipped nature towards uncomfortable subjects and poor existing records. It details changes from one edition of her books to another yet has little insightful reflection on her marriage, on the type of illness that kept her from socializing for a brief time as a teenager, or on the cause of death of her beloved servant of many years. About the outbreak of World War II, the author states that Emily "had friends and relatives overseas, including in England" without any insight as to who these individuals might be. Similarly, other than a brief reference to his remarriage and the story of his death, little is said about Edwin Post after their divorce. Similarly, little personal detail is included about Emily's son Ned. This lack of personal detail that would have breathed life into Emily and those around her kept her in the position of public figure rather than giving an intimate look at the woman herself. As a reader, I felt as if I was driving by Emily's house and reading about her in the newspaper without every getting a real inside look at her private life. However, as Emily did not keep a diary and rarely recorded or spoke of her darkest experiences, this biography likely represents the fullest picture we can have of the venerable Emily Price Post.
3.5 Stars
Emily was not the stern code-enforcing etiquette queen that many, even in her own lifetime, made her out to be. Indeed, she arrived at etiquette only after pursuing many of her other interests. Early on, she had a great love for acting and, following in her father's footsteps, architecture. She took great interest in personally designing her own clothes, which she then had made in Paris houses. She also delighted in keeping detailed accounts of her wardrobe, household, and activities and indeed had a "near compulsion to record the minutiae of her everyday life" (81). Before she was known for Etiquette, she was known for her best-selling fiction. In fact, her first novel was inspired by letters she had written home to her parents while traveling. Her mother bragged on how well written and vivid the letters were to a close family friend who was a published author, who helped introduce Emily to publishers.
Only after writing several novels did Emily begin work on Etiquette, for which she is chiefly remembered. Yet writing about social etiquette likely came easy to Emily, who had a keen interest in making her household and guests feel at ease. In 1901, a young house guest came to Emily for advice: "the girl had approached Emily in hopes that the older woman, whose taste she greatly admired and whose friendliness had encouraged her, would teach her society manners" (146). Emily delighted in helping the girl navigate the social scene, perhaps explaining the source of her early interest in helping to guide others. This dictate of always making others feel at ease and avoiding embarrassing others became the golden standard throughout her years of championing the cause of etiquette. Furthermore, she proved more than capable of changing with the times, substantially editing her rules every few years and stressing the need to be flexible. It was this book that made Emily Post famous and earned her book the honor of being "second only to the Bible as the book most often stolen from public libraries" (261).
Emily spent the rest of her life until her death in 1960 immersed in her work and spending time with friends and family. She was a well known radio host and wrote a daily advice column that at one point was distributed "to ninety-eight newspapers, with 5.5 million readers" (399). Her famous book never sold less than 30,000 copies a year in her lifetime. The little girl born to a privileged family in the wake of the Civil War ultimately proved adept at changing with the times, adapting to technology and changing social mores, and ultimately made a name for herself that is far more lasting even than her father's.
My one complaint with this book is that it feels vastly impersonal, likely due to Emily's close-lipped nature towards uncomfortable subjects and poor existing records. It details changes from one edition of her books to another yet has little insightful reflection on her marriage, on the type of illness that kept her from socializing for a brief time as a teenager, or on the cause of death of her beloved servant of many years. About the outbreak of World War II, the author states that Emily "had friends and relatives overseas, including in England" without any insight as to who these individuals might be. Similarly, other than a brief reference to his remarriage and the story of his death, little is said about Edwin Post after their divorce. Similarly, little personal detail is included about Emily's son Ned. This lack of personal detail that would have breathed life into Emily and those around her kept her in the position of public figure rather than giving an intimate look at the woman herself. As a reader, I felt as if I was driving by Emily's house and reading about her in the newspaper without every getting a real inside look at her private life. However, as Emily did not keep a diary and rarely recorded or spoke of her darkest experiences, this biography likely represents the fullest picture we can have of the venerable Emily Price Post.
3.5 Stars
September 13, 2012
While Emily Post herself is fascinating, I think this book mostly dives into the most mundane of facts concerning her - where she went on such and such a day, what she was doing when such and such an event took place. I was looking for a more personal look at her, and for someone to sum up and make sense of her life on a higher level (rather than just recounting minutiae). Instead, there are long-winded passages full of conjecture, like "The low rumble of the tires against the gravel, lulling them as they drove, probably quashed any desire to talk. Maybe the little group lingered too long, unable to tear themselves away from such perfect weather." I think her life was interesting enough without all the flowery speculation added to dress it up.
However, I like Emily Post so much that I soldiered on through the whole book, and am at least a little more knowledgable about her life I guess. Whenever I read her own writing, it's so vibrant that I can't help but want to highlight quotes the entire time. But out of this entire tome, the following are the only quotes I wanted to save (there were so few from her anyway):
"I feel each home should represent the taste of the individual living in it, and not be filled with things some one else said were the things to have."
"Houses without personality are a series of rooms with furniture in them."
"If a rule seems to be like sand in the gear box instead of the lubricating oil it is intended to be, get rid of it and use home made oil instead."
"One knows one's weak points so well, that it's bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others."
However, I like Emily Post so much that I soldiered on through the whole book, and am at least a little more knowledgable about her life I guess. Whenever I read her own writing, it's so vibrant that I can't help but want to highlight quotes the entire time. But out of this entire tome, the following are the only quotes I wanted to save (there were so few from her anyway):
"I feel each home should represent the taste of the individual living in it, and not be filled with things some one else said were the things to have."
"Houses without personality are a series of rooms with furniture in them."
"If a rule seems to be like sand in the gear box instead of the lubricating oil it is intended to be, get rid of it and use home made oil instead."
"One knows one's weak points so well, that it's bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others."
May 9, 2012
It took me a long time to make my way through this book, but I found it really interesting. It's cool how Emily Post basically "happened upon" writing about etiquette. It's at least halfway through the book (and probably more) before you get to that point, though.
Like all good stories about southerners, the book starts with Emily's family. It talks about her grandparents and spends a LOT of time on her parents.
I'm not sure the biographer really liked Emily. She seemed to think Emily didn't do enough to break out of society's mold for women at the time and that Emily was too satisfied with a mentally lightweight youth.
Where the book seem to really hit her stride is when Emily and her husband divorce and Emily begins working to support herself. Her first writings weren't about etiquette (who knew?) and she also did interior design for architect friends.
One neat thing for me was to realize that Emily Post's father was the architect for Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City.
Like all good stories about southerners, the book starts with Emily's family. It talks about her grandparents and spends a LOT of time on her parents.
I'm not sure the biographer really liked Emily. She seemed to think Emily didn't do enough to break out of society's mold for women at the time and that Emily was too satisfied with a mentally lightweight youth.
Where the book seem to really hit her stride is when Emily and her husband divorce and Emily begins working to support herself. Her first writings weren't about etiquette (who knew?) and she also did interior design for architect friends.
One neat thing for me was to realize that Emily Post's father was the architect for Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City.
September 5, 2008
This is an engaging portrait of Emily Post. Her life spanned the post-Civil War era to the Kennedy administration, and reflects many of the societal changes that took place in that era. I had no idea she was a novelist *and* amateur architect. (I will have to look for her novels.) The best sections are the first half (her childhood and youth) and the ones detailing her work on _Etiquette_; otherwise the book does tend (as biographies so often do) to get a little bogged down in superfluous detail. But the character and the personality of Emily herself sparkle on these pages, and the best parts of the book are where that shines forth.
April 16, 2009
I was disappointed by this book. It turned out to be more of a history book that felt like required reading for a college class rather than an interesting biography about a unique woman from history. The author includes way too much information about things that had no direct relevance to Emily Post, such as the society balls that were big when she was a child and all of the organizations her father belonged to. As much as I love history, I found this to be boring and dry. I was learning more about the Gilded Age and the architecture of New York City than I was learning about Emily Post. Maybe someday when I have oodles of time and patience I'll try to read this book again.
January 22, 2012
What an amazing woman so far ahead of her times! Not content to spend her life following her husband's endless sailing or following her friends in their pursuit of the gilded life in the Gilded Age. She blazed the trail that her father introduced her to as an independent woman who loved being in charge. You will be amazed at what she accomplished besides writing her famous Etiquette book that was at one point the most referenced book in the world. A well researched, excellent "read" of the early 1900s in NYC.
January 9, 2017
Great biography of a Gilded Age life whose influence continues to ripple through time and space. It flows well, and is exhaustively detailed. Unexpected Takeaway: Learned by analysis of surviving menus from Mrs. Post's social life that damn near every supper served during this period featured turtle soup. The creatures were nearly hunted to extinction to feed the craze.
February 9, 2014
I wish I had purchased this book instead of just getting it from the library. I keep finding myself wanting to go back and reference it.
August 7, 2018
This richly detailed biography of Emily Post begins slowly, placing her parents within the wider context of the gilded age then gains momentum, examining Emily's work as a novelist, businesswoman and etiquette expert within the context of the rapidly changing social mores of the 1920s and 1930s. Post belonged to an accomplised family. Her father, Bruce Price, designed the Chateau Frontenac and other Canadian Pacific Railway Hotels and stations and was even mistaken for the Duke of Connaught during a Canadian royal tour.
Emily suffered from setbacks in her personal life. Despite her interest in architecture, her gender and social class precluded her joining her father in business and her marriage ended in divorce. After the end of her marriage, she became a prolific writer who was always sensitive to the changing times. Some of the most interesting sections of the book concern how her etiquette advice altered and expanded as the years passed. She revised her Etiquette guides, removing sections on chaperones and adding advice for conversing with airplane seatmates. Post's life and advice are interspersed with the history of New York and the major historical events of her lifetime. A fascinating read.
Emily suffered from setbacks in her personal life. Despite her interest in architecture, her gender and social class precluded her joining her father in business and her marriage ended in divorce. After the end of her marriage, she became a prolific writer who was always sensitive to the changing times. Some of the most interesting sections of the book concern how her etiquette advice altered and expanded as the years passed. She revised her Etiquette guides, removing sections on chaperones and adding advice for conversing with airplane seatmates. Post's life and advice are interspersed with the history of New York and the major historical events of her lifetime. A fascinating read.
February 25, 2019
Remarkable biography that covers Emily Post as far more than the First Lady of Manners, and is in fact a fascinating social biography of the Gilded Age through post-WWII. I thought about abandoning it in the early going, as the first chapters about her ancestors didn't draw me in much, but I stuck it out and after about 60-odd pages things started to move. I was most impressed by Post's many edits to Etiquette throughout the regularly updated editions due to economic upheavals like the Great Depression and WWII and the resulting societal impact. It was gratifying to read of her increasing interest in the younger generations as she aged, not to tsk-tsk them for failing to honor hidebound codes, but to recognize that their world was radically different than hers at the same age, and that societal norms could and should evolve over time. What a pleasure to discover, not a fastidious socialite who lectured the masses on manners, but a complex, self-sufficient, empathetic, and motivated woman who lived a fascinating and fulfilling life.
September 7, 2017
Really fascinating story of Emily Post's life. Interestingly, the thing Mrs. Post is most known for -- her work on etiquette -- came late in her life, but she was rather well-accomplished for a woman of her time before that. She also did some minor work in design and architecture as well as fiction writing.
While Post seems like she was a pleasant woman, she also seems really vapid and silly at points in her life. Her political views were very under-developed and I don't think she spent much time really thinking through deeper philosophical ideas that informed some of her work. But she was really a product of her age.
One notable thing from the book: I really like her approach to etiquette and manners, which was not rigid at all, but flexible and evolved with the changing mores of society. Contrary to popular notions of manners and etiquette, she emphasized making social interactions smooth and comfortable over rules and formality.
While Post seems like she was a pleasant woman, she also seems really vapid and silly at points in her life. Her political views were very under-developed and I don't think she spent much time really thinking through deeper philosophical ideas that informed some of her work. But she was really a product of her age.
One notable thing from the book: I really like her approach to etiquette and manners, which was not rigid at all, but flexible and evolved with the changing mores of society. Contrary to popular notions of manners and etiquette, she emphasized making social interactions smooth and comfortable over rules and formality.
May 21, 2022
Claridge's well-researched work on the life of Emily Post exceeded all my expectations in a biographical book. I have learned in this book that Post is more of a figure of the Progressive Era of America rather than the Gilded Age. Although she never supported the Suffragist movement publicly, she empowered women through her works in "Etiquette" and newspaper columns about the modern woman. I was suprprised that her ideas are not confined on the old ways, but the fact that her book "Etiquette" was revised a lot of times, it proves that manners and conduct should always be in tune with the times and true to the adage "Do what the Romans do". I wonder host Miss Post would advise people during this social media age. Kudos again to Claridge for this oustanding and brilliant book about the Mistress of American Etiquette.
August 11, 2023
My grandmother gave me the 19th edition of Etiquette as a present, explaining that her generation gifted a copy to anyone who experienced a milestone in their life (she gave a copy to my mom when she married my dad). I happened a week later to find this book at the Newberry Library Book Fair, and I was so excited to learn about the woman who so impressed my grandmother’s generation.
I think this is a fun, interesting book on an equally interesting topic! The shifts in culture, technology, and manners that Emily experienced in her lifetime are almost unbelievable. Most of all, I am impressed with her compassionate view of people, and her belief that everyone can be a part of “Best Society” by treating others ethically and sympathetically. I think we could all stand to learn a thing or two from Emily Post, and I’m glad that I got to learn more about her life and philosophy.
I think this is a fun, interesting book on an equally interesting topic! The shifts in culture, technology, and manners that Emily experienced in her lifetime are almost unbelievable. Most of all, I am impressed with her compassionate view of people, and her belief that everyone can be a part of “Best Society” by treating others ethically and sympathetically. I think we could all stand to learn a thing or two from Emily Post, and I’m glad that I got to learn more about her life and philosophy.
August 20, 2018
I don't think this book is highly readable at all. I think it is bet suited for someone doing research into Emily's life. It reads like a doctoral thesis or a college textbook. Not easy to read at all! That being said it is indeed an informative biography of her life. I had no idea she was divorced and supported herself. I found it shocking that her grandson Bill had no idea there was a second family out there through his grandfather. Neither Emily or his father Ned mentioned the fact that Bill had half-uncles! That sounds like something you might discover today through Ancestry.com-"Surprise! I'm your Uncle Henry!" I really want to see some color pictures of her and her signature red shoes though.
January 23, 2020
I enjoyed reading about both the subject (Emily Post) as well as the overview of the time in which she lived. The biography is very thorough and often includes names and associations that might be more meaningful to an older generation (and I"m 62). So interesting that she was a woman of her day and yet at the same time, ahead of her time. I like the way Laura Claridge not only discussed Emily's overall view of manners (as a way to live gracefully and thoughtfully), but included the way men often reviewed her work and clearly without actually reading her books, judged her as "fussy and bossy" (she was neither).
It was such a pleasant surprise to learn that she was a woman with so many skills who wrote on more topics besides etiquette!
It was such a pleasant surprise to learn that she was a woman with so many skills who wrote on more topics besides etiquette!
July 4, 2018
A bit too long, but then she had a very long and relatively full life. Following her divorce, Post became a business woman as much as a best selling author. What I found interesting is how the many revisions of Etiquette from 1922 to 1955 parallel the cultural history of the U.S. during those decades. Extensively (TMI?) researched, this book goes way beyond a portrait of Emily Post and serves as a socio-cultural history of women of a certain class during that time, with all their privilege and restrictions.
July 2, 2023
So many facts, so many people, so much information. Huge footnote section, I found the writing labored, hard to follow even at the sentence level, but got a sense of where Emily's family fit into the Gilded Age and how Emily herself traversed some amazing time's in American history. She seemed to be a wonderful character around whom you could make quite an interesting movie.
With all that great research, I'd like to have seen it woven into a compelling, character-centered story taking this book to a five star level.
With all that great research, I'd like to have seen it woven into a compelling, character-centered story taking this book to a five star level.
July 25, 2023
Emily Post and her book Etiquette are famous. Emily wrote more than the title Etiquette, that she revised many times for later editions. She wrote novels and a children’s book. Emily lived her life on her own terms, especially after surviving the humiliation of divorce. She was born and raised the time of The Gilded Age, but realized how women were repressed at this time. She forged ahead quietly and with a sense of humor.
November 17, 2017
Emily Post had a very interesting life. I like how she created opportunities for herself to become financially independent and that she was such a hard working woman. I especially liked all the details about her famous architect father.
I didn’t like the authors attitude about Emily’s life compared to now days.
I didn’t like the authors attitude about Emily’s life compared to now days.
April 1, 2019
Emily Post may have been a fascinating person, but that doesn't really come through in this biography. It was interesting to learn that she'd been a fiction writer as well as famous for her books on etiquette. On the whole, however, this was rather dry, slow, and repetitive. It was a bit of a slog to make it through to the end.
March 14, 2020
So much detail it was hard to see the story of the woman who bridged the distance from Victorian manners to modern. Emily Post's personal and professional stories are far more interesting than I expected, but I felt the myriad weaving of connections between influential people clogged up the book with tedious information.
February 13, 2023
I was a farm boy in Iowa when I bought her book of manners and read it through. I didn’t know I was one of millions who did so over the years. Her revisions changed how people lived and related. She wrote many books and was on national radio and in newspapers. She was a feminine activist and was famous. She made mistakes. What an amazing life.
September 9, 2025
While I am reading this book on social propriety, the photo of a Sudanese woman on the cover of "Voice of the Martyrs" on my desk is staring at me. The disparity is unsettling. While I am following the Post narrative with passing interest, a sense of the futility of Emily's life is ever in the background. It is encouraging to note that the latter part of her life appeared far more productive & purposeful.
Author's comments on page 432 re: Hx of Pandowdy are poorly researched and absolutely incorrect.
Author's comments on page 432 re: Hx of Pandowdy are poorly researched and absolutely incorrect.
January 31, 2018
Totally engrossing!
I truly had no idea about this remarkable woman! She was a trailblazer long before it became popular. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about this remarkable woman!!
I truly had no idea about this remarkable woman! She was a trailblazer long before it became popular. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about this remarkable woman!!
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October 16, 2019Way, way too much information. Author's addition of what must have been tons of research made book too much to plod through.
July 10, 2020
I wanted to like this book but I just can’t read another page. So....dry? Tedious? Boring?
June 21, 2021
Excellent
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