The Impostor Heiress, Annie Reed
The Impostor Heiress, Annie Reed
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Impostor Heiress
Cassie Chadwick, the Greatest Grifter of the Gilded Age

Author: Annie Reed

Narrator: Kate Udall

Unabridged: 9 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/11/2024

Categories: Nonfiction, True Crime


Synopsis

Before there was Anna Delvey or Elizabeth Holmes, there was Cassie Chadwick. The first woman–using criminal cunning, some confidence, and a bit of charm—to bring down a federal agent, a bank, and a city's worth of men.

Cassie Chadwick, one of history's most successful con artists, was a master of the trade. She swept from town to town, assuming new identities and running new swindles at each railroad stop. In the dusk of the Gilded Age, years after the robber barons had amassed their fortunes, she was amassing her own.

Using her wits and a series of forged documents, Cassie convinced prominent men from Cleveland to New York City that she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter. The con made her impossibly rich. The crash shattered banks and bankers alike. Her sensational trial drew the eyes of a nation that couldn't get enough of the woman, who newspapers called the Queen of Swindlers, the Duchess of Diamonds, the High Priestess of Fraudulent Finance.

Interspersing Cassie's crimes with stories of an unsuspecting Andrew Carnegie, author Annie Reed spins an enthralling tale of true crime. Could the rumors be true? Can Cassie's money last? Will she escape the electric chair?

About Annie Reed

Annie Reed earned a law degree from the University of Notre Dame and a history degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Blaine on September 04, 2024

History has been filled with con men, grifters, people who make their way in society by preying on unsuspecting dupes. But rarely has been a woman has created a grifter as Cassie Chadwick, the subject. Annie Reed's first book. This is a fine nonfiction book about a woman from Canada, who always want......more

Goodreads review by Angel on July 03, 2024

"The Imposter Heiress: Cassie Chadwick, the Greatest Grifter of the Gilded Age" by Annie Reed is a nonfiction biography. Born Elizabeth Bigley in 1857 to a poor family in Canada, she became one of the wealthiest women in the US by the late 1890s, but she did it by conning bankers to lend her money b......more

Goodreads review by Lois on June 18, 2024

This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Annie Reed, Tantor Audio, and NetGalley. The narrator of this nonfiction history audiobook is Kate Udall. Ms. Udall has a voice that conveys a lot of emotion. This works in the listeners favor during this wild history lesson. This is......more

Goodreads review by Gaeli on April 24, 2024

Reminiscent of Devil in the White City and Inventing Anna, The Imposter Heiress manages to be a historical true crime story about a thief that the audience is kind of rooting for. Targeting the wealthy and entire banks, Cassie accumulates the kind of wealth that would make the above-average Newport,......more

Goodreads review by Alyssa on March 01, 2024

I just don’t understand how she did it… was everyone in that day that gullible?! It would be interesting to see what kind of practices and changes were implemented in the banking world after such a scheme. Annie Reed tells this story in a way that makes you feel like you’re reading a fictional tale.......more