When word got around that I'd written a memoir called Dead End Gene Pool, about growing up in an over-funded and over-served blueblood family, people wanted to know my family's reaction. The good news is, almost everyone in the book is safely tucked away six feet under; but beware the...

From "Dead End Gene Pool" by Wendy Burden

Prologue

It's a testament to his libido, if not his character, that Cornelius Vanderbilt died of syphilis instead of apoplexy.

In 1794, a few miles from where his powdered bones eternally lie, within the eight-foot-thick walls of the largest tomb ever built...