Prince or Chauffeur? A Story of Newport

Newport, Rhode Island, summer season. The tables are set, the yachts are moored, and everyone with a name in the Social Register is watching. Young heiress Margaret Winthrop has two suitors: a Russian prince whose title gleams but whose reputation carries troubling shadows, and James Burton, a perfectly respectable chauffeur whose very profession places him at the bottom of her world. Society expects an easy answer. Margaret has other ideas. Lawrence Perry's 1916 comedy of manners dismantles the glittering certainties of American aristocracy with sharp wit and genuine heart. The prince may wear crown jewels, but his character proves more tarnished than the silver. The chauffeur may lack a coat of arms, but he possesses something far rarer: honesty, ambition, and a mystery in his past that complicates every assumption. As Newport's gossip circles churn and family pressures mount, Margaret must decide whether marriage is a transaction for status or a chance at something real. A forgotten gem of Gilded Age fiction that reads like Edith Wharton channeling a screwball comedy. It endures because its central question remains urgent: who deserves our love, and what do we owe to the people who raised us?