Betsy Prioleau

A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Gilded Age Female Tycoon

Diamonds and Deadlines

Elizabeth Stevens Prioleau

Profiles some of history's most noted seductresses including Cleopatra, Lola Montez, and Wallis Simpson, describing their high levels of intelligence and political savvy and evaluating their mastery of the erotic arts. 20,000 first printing.

Women who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love

Seductress

"Lose yourself: Swoon has wicked fun answering that age-old query: What do women want?"—Chicago Tribune Contrary to popular myth and dogma, the men who consistently beguile women belie the familiar stereotypes: satanic rake, alpha stud, slick player, Mr. Nice, or big-money mogul. As Betsy Prioleau, author of Seductress, points out in this surprising, insightful study, legendary ladies’ men are a different, complex species altogether, often without looks or money. They fit no known template and possess a cache of powerful erotic secrets. With wit and erudition, Prioleau cuts through the cultural lore and reveals who these master lovers really are and the arts they practice to enswoon women. What she discovers is revolutionary. Using evidence from science, popular culture, fiction, anthropology, and history, and from interviews with colorful real-world ladykillers, Prioleau finds that great seducers share a constellation of unusual traits. While these men run the gamut, they radiate joie de vivre, intensity, and sex appeal; above all, they adore women. They listen, praise, amuse, and delight, and they know their way around the bedroom. And they’ve finessed the hardest part: locking in and revving desire. Women never tire of these fascinators and often, like Casanova’s conquests, remain besotted for life. Finally, Prioleau takes stock of the contemporary culture and asks: where are the Casanovas of today? After a critique of the twenty-first-century sexual malaise—the gulf between the sexes and women’s record discontent—she compellingly argues that society needs ladies’ men more than ever. Groundbreaking and provocative, Swoon is underpinned with sharp analysis, brilliant research, and served up with seductive verve.

Swoon: Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them

Análisis ameno y divulgativo de la figura del seductor a lo largo de la historia y el secreto. «¿Qué quieren realmente las mujeres?» se preguntaba Freud poco antes de morir, y la respuesta no es fácil, sobre todo si lo que está en juego es el deseo. A lo largo de la historia, algunos hombres han marcado el camino de la seducción, y la realidad demuestra que no fueron los más apuestos ni los más ricos quienes fueron ganando la partida. Desde siempre, la inteligencia, el sentido del humor y un talento innato para la complicidad han sido las armas de los grandes seductores. Si de muestra sirve un botón, Humphrey Bogart y Woody Allen allí están para demostrarlo. Pero quizá haga falta algo más... Los grandes seductores y por qué las mujeres se enamoran de ellos es un análisis riguroso y ameno que viaja a través de la literatura y el arte para buscar ese ingrediente misterioso que distingue al verdaderoseductor del amante aficionado, ese que solo acumula conquistas para satisfacer su ego. Empezando por el mítico Casanova y llegando hasta John F. Kennedy y Leonard Cohen, Betsy Prioleau ha investigado más allá de los tópicos y su respuesta a la famosa pregunta de Freud es simple y al mismo tiempo sorprendente. Damas y caballeros, pasen y lean...la polémica está servida.

Los grandes seductores y por qué las mujeres se enamoran de ellos

Sexuality in the Work of William Dean Howells

The Circle of Eros

The first biography of the glamorous and scandalous Miriam Leslie—a titan of publishing and an unsung hero of women’s suffrage—connecting Gilded Age opulence with present-day social justice Among the fabled tycoons of the Gilded Age—Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt—is a forgotten figure: Mrs. Frank Leslie. For 20 years she ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Enterprises, which chronicled the postbellum United States in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity in the process. But Miriam Leslie was also a byword for scandal: She flouted feminine convention, took lovers, married four times, and harbored unsavory secrets which she concealed through a skein of lies and multiple personas. Both before and after her death, glimpses of the truth emerged, including an illegitimate birth and a checkered youth. At the end, Leslie, a staunch royalist and member of the ultra-elite, willed her multimillion-dollar estate to women’s suffrage, providing enough funding to guarantee the passage of the 19th Amendment. A dazzling biography, Diamonds & Deadlines reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “Empress of Journalism” who presaged the feminist future and reflected, in bold relief, the Gilded Age, one of the most momentous, seismic, and vivid epochs in American history.

Betsy Prioleau

About

Books

Join the club