Sisters of Fortune: Being the True Story of How Three Motherless Sisters Saved Their Home in New England and Raised Their Younger Brother

This is a big surprise: a complete page-turner that's also a collection of historically eye-opening letters. Fascinating.

Sisters of Fortune is a biography of a family during the Civil War era. It reads like a novel. Three sisters who live in a small town in New Hampshire, left by their fortune-seeking father, try to maintain their upper-middle class life style on the little money he sends them while they fall in and out of love, have their hearts broken, and finally marry. The sisters write wonderful letters to their father telling him of their loves, travels, parties, friends, relations, neighbors, domestic affairs, money worries, etc. and begging him to come home. When the eldest daughter Lizzie marries and moves to New York, the younger daughters, Annie and Charlotte spend winters with her there and launch themselves in a round of parties and social events. Since their father had been a Congressman, they know and write about many of the famous men of the day--for example, Daniel Webster was a family friend. They write about the the slavery debates, the coming of the Civil War, and the growth of New York City as well as their own private affairs. A touching and charming book.