Duet In Diamonds the Flamboyant Saga Of Lillian Russell and Diamond Jim Brady in America's Gilded Age

From the Jacket: Duet in Diamonds by John Burke. The Gay Nineties, the age of red plush, ten-course dinners and lobster palaces. Of the many celebrities and famous personalities of that gaudy, glittering, opulent era, two stand out as the most colorful and most flamboyant: Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell. James Buchanan Brady, born above his father's waterfront saloon, began his career as a Broadway bellhop and railroad ticket taker. Thanks to his publicity talents, he became a salesman nonpareil, propelling his showmanship first as a superseller of railroad equipment and subsequently as a steel-car magnate, amassing a fortune of $12,000,000. Born Helen Leonard in a small Iowa town, Lillian Russell became the queen of the musical stage with a phenomenal voice capable of hitting eight high C's in one performance and by general acclaim "the most desirable woman in America." They met-appropriately enough-at a dinner table. Jim's meals were gargantuan affairs: He customarily began his dinners with six dozen oysters, followed by several tureens of turtle soup, several massive steaks "smothered in lamb chops," a brace of pheasants, several other assorted courses, all washed down with a gallon of orange juice and topped off with a five-pound box of chocolates. To the end of his life, Diamond Jim was devoted to Lillian, showering her with diamonds, a gold-plated bicycle, literally spending millions on her. Their appetites for rich food, the diamonds with which they emblazoned themselves-Brady had a different set of jewelry for every day of the month and a cane with a three-carat diamond embedded in the ferule-made them exemplars of an epoch of gilded ostentation that has vanished forever. Their story is exciting, absorbing, and exotic-and in DUET IN DIAMONDS that story is told in a lively, anecdotal style that evokes a bygone era and two of its most celebrated figures. Illustrated, 286 pp.