
The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield
A Tragedy of the Gilded Age
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Narrated by:
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Richard McGonagle
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By:
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H. W. Brands
Even before he was shot dead on the stairway of the tony Grand Central Hotel in 1872, financier James “Jubilee Jim” Fisk, Jr., was a notorious New York City figure. From his audacious attempt to corner the gold market in 1869 to his battle for control of the geographically crucial Erie Railroad, Fisk was a flamboyant exemplar of a new financial era marked by volatile fortunes and unprecedented greed and corruption. But it was his scandalously open affair with a showgirl named Josie Mansfield that ultimately led to his demise.
In this riveting short history - the first in his American Portraits series - H. W. Brand's traces Fisk’s extraordinary downfall, bringing to life New York’s Gilded Age and some of its legendary players, including Boss William Tweed, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the railroad tycoon Jay Gould.
©2011 H.W. Brands (P)2011 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
“H. W. Brands is a master at finding the essence of an important American life, telling its story grippingly and showing us why it is important to our own generation.” (Michael Beschloss)
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Interesting
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The book is well-written and well-narrated. But in the end I wasn't sure what it was about, why it was relevant to our understanding, today, of that period, or the relevance of that period to today. Addressing such issues was clearly not among the objectives of HW Brands, a great popular historian, a number of whose books I have read or listened to in the past.
interesting "period piece" of history
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Brands imparts a storyteller magic and I finished it in one sitting. I could not put it down. Beauty had its privileges; beauty brought down two men, and still becomes the advantage of those so blessed with it. I enjoyed this old, Victorian era true story, and the weaving of the tale is done peculiarly well by Brands.
One area that I wish would have been included is the thinking of the wives of these men. Were they passive participants in their husband's adulterous ways, or were they bystanders stuck in society's norms of the day?
Same love story; different era
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Great Research but…
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Dull and lifeless
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Boring just a boring guild age crook.
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