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BOOKS: The woman behind the manners

By | Sunday, November 2, 2008

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DAUGHTER OF THE GILDED AGE, MISTRESS OF AMERICAN MANNERS

By Laura Claridge

Random House, $30, 525 pages

REVIEWED BY MARION ELIZABETH RODGERS

Fifty years after the death of Emily Post, her book on etiquette ("Emily Post's Etiquette"), remains one of Barnes & Noble's best-selling books in its category. Recently, Life named Emily Post one of "The 100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century." During her lifetime, Emily Post ranked only second to Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the most powerful women in America.

So it is only natural that there should be interest in the woman behind the manners. Laura Claridge, author of "Norman Rockwell: A Life" and "Tamara de Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence" takes an enthusiastic approach to her subject, though I confess this reviewer has been left less than enthusiastic.

Was Emily Post truly such an "amazing personality" as the blurb-givers say? If so, there are not enough instances in this narrative to convince me that her personality was so exceptional as to merit a long biography.

Her father, handsome and talented Bruce Price, was an award-winning architect. His buildings included New York's American Surety Building, still standing at the heart of Manhattan's Financial District, and Quebec's Chateau Frontenac. Her mother was a well-born railroad heiress, Josephine Lee. The family soon left Baltimore for New York, mingling with the Roosevelts and Astors, and - what my own imperious grandmother used to call "the Johnny-come-latelies" – the Vanderbilts and Morgans. Down to earth, Bruce and Josephine taught Emily an important value: Real quality has nothing to do with money or birth.

Statuesque and pretty, Emily triumphed as a debutante; after one party, her departing carriage looked like a florist shop. While dancing to waltzes and polkas, she captured the heart of aristocrat Edwin Main Post, from a Dutch family of impeccable pedigree, "the bluest of blood" of a certain privileged class. Soon after, the belle of the ball and the handsome Edwin married, but were unsuited for each other from the start.

We are not meant to like Edwin, nor do we. His taste in art was sophomoric; his integrity questionable; his ego swelled. He was a typically Victorian, baby-faced lout. When not playing bridge or the stock market (successfully, even during the Depression of the 1890s), he sailed his yacht or blasted his gun at every single animal or bird that moved.