13 h 47 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a fortune built by hard hands reaches heirs who have never had to earn a cent?
In The Spenders: A Tale of the Third Generation, Harry Leon Wilson turns inherited wealth into a family comedy. The first generation makes the money, the second keeps it, and the third spends it. Now ambition, love and appetite test what that fortune means to the people who hold it.
Set at the turn of the twentieth century, the novel explores new money and the world of society. Wealth can buy a house, a carriage and a name in the papers. But affection and fortune do not always pull together. Wilson brings a sharp eye and a light touch to the strain between them.
What you’ll discover
- Three generations of wealth Follow the divide between the hard work of making money and the appetite for spending it.
- New money in society Explore a world where growing fortunes meet old habits and social ambition.
- Courtship under pressure Discover how love tests people when affection and financial interests point in different directions.
- Comedy with a gentle edge Enjoy Wilson’s gentle jabs at American appetite, with feeling beneath the humor.
- An inheritance worth questioning Consider what a family passes down beyond the money its heirs receive.
Who will love it
For readers who enjoy social comedy, witty talk and sharp portraits of the rich. It will please anyone curious about Gilded Age New York, the American West, and love stories that grow out of money, family and ambition.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Three generations and one sudden death
- Uncle Peter and the pleasure of poverty
- The West and the East go to war at home
- A girl in the mine and a meeting underground
- Letters that show what each of them really thinks
- The family moves East and learns the rules
- The spender's winter and the family's follies
- Uncle Peter comes to town with a plan
- What the story is really about
Who’s who
- Percival BinesA rich, charming Montana heir who wants New York and the girl he lifted from a street of cab horses.
- Uncle Peter BinesThe old prospector and grandfather who made the family silver strike and who wants his grandson to find something worth doing.
- Avice MilbreyA clever, beautiful New York girl raised to marry for money, who longs for something truer and cannot say so.
- Psyche BinesPercival's blond sister, called Pish at home, who wants society, a title and good bridge partners.
- Mrs. BinesThe widowed mother, calm and literal-minded, who cannot pass a beggar or a baby without giving help.
- Billy BrueUncle Peter's loyal, gambling hired hand, dazzled and robbed by New York, who follows him everywhere.
- Rulon SheplerA big-headed New York financier, shrewd and amused, who watches the Bines family and has his eye on Avice.
- Silas HigbeeA loud, generous Chicago ham packer who gives plain advice to young men and fears his son has been spoiled.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 13 h 47 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Die Verschwender: Eine Geschichte der dritten Generation
by Harry Leon Wilson · 1902
A Montana heir carries his millions to New York, where a girl trained to marry money waits for him.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Spenders is a comic novel by Harry Leon Wilson, set around 1900. It follows Percival Bines, a young Montana heir, as he carries his family's mining fortune from the mountains to the drawing rooms and hotel lobbies of New York.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Three generations and one sudden death
The story opens when Daniel J. Bines, a railroad and mining millionaire, dies of a stroke in his private car at Kaslo Junction. His secretary, Toler, must find two men with the news. One is the old father, Peter Bines, somewhere in the Sierras prospecting. The other is the son, a Harvard man just back from Europe and now at Newport.
Wilson uses the moment to sketch the family as a portrait of the West. Peter is the pioneer who went into the wilderness in Frémont's day. Daniel is the builder who turned minerals, lumber, cattle and grain into money and laid railroads across the land. The third generation, young Percival, has a taste for ease and polish that neither of the others had.
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What is The Spenders about?
It follows Percival Bines, a young heir to a Montana mining fortune, who takes his family to New York to spend his inheritance. He falls for a society girl and finds that money brings him many pleasures and many troubles.
What does the subtitle A Tale of the Third Generation mean?
It refers to the family's progress across three generations. Peter Bines made the money, his son Daniel built it, and Percival inherits it. A German scholar in the book says fortunes tend to go from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.
Who is Uncle Peter Bines?
He is Percival's grandfather, a former penniless prospector who found a rich silver vein in 1870. He still prospects in the hills each summer, speaks plainly, scorns New York's airs and cares deeply for his grandson.
The author
Harry Leon Wilson
1867–1939 · American novelist
Harry Leon Wilson (1867–1939) was an American novelist. He was born in Oregon, Illinois, and later lived in California. His novels include The Spenders (1902), Ruggles of Red Gap (1915), and Merton of the Movies (1922). He died in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in 1939.
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