"Fortune's Children is a monument to the mesmerizing power of money...The author has been assiduous in combing memoirs, biographies, and private papers and in raiding the social columnists of the period. He has an eye for a memorable quotation."

"A spellbinding tale of how money really does change everything."

"A financial fairy tale so bizarre it dwarfs the antics of modern Midases such as Malcolm Forbes and Donald Trump."

"A fascinating picture of social and financial struggle in New York a hundred years ago...a truly fascinating book."

"Among the author's earlier books is Changing Law, an award-winning biography of his grandfather, Arthur T. Vanderbilt. His latest history, witty, entertaining, and sad, also merits a prize for the writer, a lawyer and one among many members of the fabled family who inherited the Vanderbilt name but not the wealth...Stories about the author's ancestors have been told before but not so vividly as in his evocations of the snobbery, ostentation, and profligacy that caused 'the fall of the House of Vanderbilt.' Today's Vanderbilts are not rich-rich; the money is gone with the clan's grand homes, felled by wrecking balls in New York and elsewhere, leaving only memories of a singular time in the American past."

"In this family history, Vanderbilt dramatizes both the successes and excesses of America's Gilded Age--the enormous new wealth, the lavish lifestyles, and, later, the desperate schemes to maintain social status and fortune, contesting wills, matchmaking with nobility, and, most notably, battling for custody of 'Little Gloria.' But the story is not so much about people as the palaces they built--the Breakers, the Biltmore, and mansions which used to occupy blocks of now-prime Manhattan real estate--all of which became white elephants sold to preservation societies or Towers of Babels that fell under a wave of taxes and upkeep cost. An absorbing social history."

"Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was called the Commodore, saw one steamboat give way to a fleet and then to trains. Likewise, his family saw one mansion on Staten Island grow into several, as described in this book by descendant Arthur T. Vanderbilt II. Patrick Lawlor gives voice to the Commodore with an intimidating bluntness. The other Vanderbilt family members, as portrayed by Lawlor, mostly sound in awe of him. Still, as the author cheerfully describes society parties and mansions, listeners can hear a tone of amusement at the instances of excessive luxury, such as footmen bearing ice cream for the kids. The family's gilt may be gone, but stories that shift from industriousness to custody battles recall a golden past."

Vanderbilt: the very name signifies wealth. The family patriarch, "the Commodore," built up a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet, less than fifty years after the Commodore's death, one of his direct descendants died penniless, and no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Fortune's Children tells the dramatic story of all the amazingly colorful spenders who dissipated such a vast inheritance.