Carol Mcd. Wallace

When Julian Fellowes was approached to create the now immensely popular Downton Abbey TV series, he was reading TO MARRY AN ENGLISH LORD, by Gail McColl and Carol McD. Wallace, which he calls “a marvelous and entertaining study of the American girls who came over to England, mostly between 1890 and 1914, to marry into the British aristocracy.” As a result, Lady Cora (played by Elizabeth McGovern) was the first character he imagined. It occurred to him that “while it must have been wonderful for these girls to begin with, what happened twenty-five years later when they were freezing in a house in Cheshire, aching for Long Island?”

TO MARRY AN ENGLISH LORD explores both the glamour and the misfortune that greeted some 100+ newly minted American heiresses who, having been snubbed by the Social Register, invaded Britannia to swap dollars for titles. First published in 1989, this book has been reissued for Downton Abbey fans. From their courtships to their welcome (or not) by new in-laws; from their magnificent wardrobes to the even more magnificent jewels they acquired through marriage; and from the pressure to produce an heir to the affairs that frequently warmed up frigid rooms when husbands were away on expeditions—it’s all here. Carol Wallace has collected photographs and anecdotes into a lively and gossipy talk and Powerpoint presentation, which she has given at historic houses and libraries, and to various organizations.

Born in Connecticut to a reporter father and a bookseller mother and having grown up next door to a library, Carol Wallace was destined to become a writer. After graduating from Princeton, she worked briefly in book publishing, then coauthored the bestselling The Official Preppy Handbook. Since then she has written twenty more books and dozens of magazine articles in the areas of humor, social history, parenting, and fiction. In 2006, she received an M.A. in art history from Columbia. Research for her master’s thesis was the basis for her 2011 historical novel Leaving Van Gogh, and she has just completed another novel, Madame Manet.

Carol lives in New York City with her husband and two children. She justifies her ten-book-a-month reading habit with a blog.