---
product_id: 8871117
title: "What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age"
price: "653053₫"
currency: VND
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 10
url: https://www.desertcart.vn/products/8871117-what-the-lady-wants-a-novel-of-marshall-field-gilded
store_origin: VN
region: Vietnam
---

# What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age

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## Description

In late-nineteenth-century Chicago, visionary retail tycoon Marshall Field made his fortune wooing women customers with his famous motto: “Give the lady what she wants.” His legendary charm also won the heart of socialite Delia Spencer and led to an infamous love affair. The night of the Great Fire, as seventeen-year-old Delia watches the flames rise and consume what was the pioneer town of Chicago, she can’t imagine how much her life, her city, and her whole world are about to change. Nor can she guess that the agent of that change will not simply be the fire, but more so the man she meets that night... Leading the way in rebuilding after the fire, Marshall Field reopens his well-known dry goods store and transforms it into something the world has never seen before: a glamorous palace of a department store. He and his powerhouse coterie—including Potter Palmer and George Pullman—usher in the age of robber barons, the American royalty of their generation. But behind the opulence, their private lives are riddled with scandal and heartbreak. Delia and Marshall first turn to each other out of loneliness, but as their love deepens, they will stand together despite disgrace and ostracism, through an age of devastation and opportunity, when an adolescent Chicago is transformed into the gleaming White City of the Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1893.

Review: a must read! - I loved it. What a wonderful story of strength and perseverance I loved learning about the rich history of Chicago
Review: The Merchant Prince's Woman - One of the first jobs I ever held was as a salesperson for Marshall Field & Co., in their Evanston branch (just north of Chicago). At the time, all new employees had to undergo three days of training in their flagship State Street branch. I was no stranger to that store. I spent many happy hours wandering around its luxurious interior, looking at things I couldn't afford to buy, and even standing outside in the cold to see their incredible Christmas window displays. Marshall Field's was part of my history, part of the history of Chicago, and a huge chunk of the retail store industry's history. Where I grew up, everyone knew that, respected it and it made us proud*. That's why I knew that a historical fiction novel about this particular woman behind this particular empire-building man was exactly my kind of story. The novel begins with the Great Chicago Fire, and how Delia meets Marshall for the first time, and from there we follow the two and their paths - both separate and together - until Marshall's death. It is, of course, a love story, but one filled with quite a few hardships. To begin with, Marshall Field was married to Nannie Douglas Scott, and two of their children reached adulthood. Dalia Spencer was married to Arthur Caton. After the deaths of Arthur and Nannie, Marshall married Dalia - his "long-time friend," as the papers called them, despite the rumors about an affair between them, which certainly caused a scandal in their day. On the side of commerce, the Chicago Fire wasn't the only disaster that befell both the city and Field's business. These included another major fire, a financial panic that lead to a depression and the rise of the labor unions, which Field opposed. Put these two together, with a heavy dose of conjecture, and that's just the perfect recipe for a rip-roaring historical fiction romance novel, which is exactly what Rosen gives us. With all that information available, Rosen needed to make sure she didn't include too much history and not enough fiction. Thankfully, Rosen shows she knows her stuff, carefully treading that fine line like a professional tightrope walker. That means that Rosen had to put the love affair at the very heart of this story, and then weave everything else around that, even at the expense of some facts going astray. As necessary as this focus is, there was one small section where I think she got a touch carried away with the romance part, which I feel could have been left out of the final version. That said, I did like her idea about how she solved the problem of Nellie Field being suspiciously absent, while Marshall, Delia and Arthur were constantly seen together hobnobbing around Chicago's high society. Rosen achieves all of this with a very simple prose style, which has enough touches of formal language to give us a feel for the era, without sounding archaic. Furthermore, she builds Delia's character with precision so that we cannot help but empathize with her. This also helps us believe how both Arthur and Marshall would fall in love with her. Despite how Rosen shows Marshall's harsher side, in his relationship with Delia he is both charming and endearing, which of course, is exactly why Nellie loved him as well. This leaves Nellie to be the prime antagonist in the story, and Rosen has her play that part with all her might. All told, this book is simply a joy to read from beginning to end. Rosen's style is engaging and era appropriate with elements that made this almost into a page-turner mystery novel. The only small problem was the part of the story that bordered on being too romantic for my taste, but otherwise this novel is hard to fault. Despite my already knowing many of the facts behind this story, I found some non-fictional things that I didn't know anything about, together with some very enjoyable fictional additions. For all of this, I can warmly recommend this novel with four and a half out of five stars. (* To this day, I refuse to walk into a Macy's because when they took over Marshall Field's & Co., they refused to leave the original name on the State Street building, even as "Marshall Field's at Macy's.")

## Features

- Signed

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #85,751 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #131 in Fiction Urban Life #771 in Historical Romances #2,599 in Historical Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.3 out of 5 stars 2,574 Reviews |

## Images

![What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81aiMDXWzwL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ a must read!
*by M***R on May 7, 2025*

I loved it. What a wonderful story of strength and perseverance I loved learning about the rich history of Chicago

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Merchant Prince's Woman
*by D***N on February 2, 2016*

One of the first jobs I ever held was as a salesperson for Marshall Field & Co., in their Evanston branch (just north of Chicago). At the time, all new employees had to undergo three days of training in their flagship State Street branch. I was no stranger to that store. I spent many happy hours wandering around its luxurious interior, looking at things I couldn't afford to buy, and even standing outside in the cold to see their incredible Christmas window displays. Marshall Field's was part of my history, part of the history of Chicago, and a huge chunk of the retail store industry's history. Where I grew up, everyone knew that, respected it and it made us proud*. That's why I knew that a historical fiction novel about this particular woman behind this particular empire-building man was exactly my kind of story. The novel begins with the Great Chicago Fire, and how Delia meets Marshall for the first time, and from there we follow the two and their paths - both separate and together - until Marshall's death. It is, of course, a love story, but one filled with quite a few hardships. To begin with, Marshall Field was married to Nannie Douglas Scott, and two of their children reached adulthood. Dalia Spencer was married to Arthur Caton. After the deaths of Arthur and Nannie, Marshall married Dalia - his "long-time friend," as the papers called them, despite the rumors about an affair between them, which certainly caused a scandal in their day. On the side of commerce, the Chicago Fire wasn't the only disaster that befell both the city and Field's business. These included another major fire, a financial panic that lead to a depression and the rise of the labor unions, which Field opposed. Put these two together, with a heavy dose of conjecture, and that's just the perfect recipe for a rip-roaring historical fiction romance novel, which is exactly what Rosen gives us. With all that information available, Rosen needed to make sure she didn't include too much history and not enough fiction. Thankfully, Rosen shows she knows her stuff, carefully treading that fine line like a professional tightrope walker. That means that Rosen had to put the love affair at the very heart of this story, and then weave everything else around that, even at the expense of some facts going astray. As necessary as this focus is, there was one small section where I think she got a touch carried away with the romance part, which I feel could have been left out of the final version. That said, I did like her idea about how she solved the problem of Nellie Field being suspiciously absent, while Marshall, Delia and Arthur were constantly seen together hobnobbing around Chicago's high society. Rosen achieves all of this with a very simple prose style, which has enough touches of formal language to give us a feel for the era, without sounding archaic. Furthermore, she builds Delia's character with precision so that we cannot help but empathize with her. This also helps us believe how both Arthur and Marshall would fall in love with her. Despite how Rosen shows Marshall's harsher side, in his relationship with Delia he is both charming and endearing, which of course, is exactly why Nellie loved him as well. This leaves Nellie to be the prime antagonist in the story, and Rosen has her play that part with all her might. All told, this book is simply a joy to read from beginning to end. Rosen's style is engaging and era appropriate with elements that made this almost into a page-turner mystery novel. The only small problem was the part of the story that bordered on being too romantic for my taste, but otherwise this novel is hard to fault. Despite my already knowing many of the facts behind this story, I found some non-fictional things that I didn't know anything about, together with some very enjoyable fictional additions. For all of this, I can warmly recommend this novel with four and a half out of five stars. (* To this day, I refuse to walk into a Macy's because when they took over Marshall Field's & Co., they refused to leave the original name on the State Street building, even as "Marshall Field's at Macy's.")

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Biographical,Historical and Beautiful
*by C***N on May 8, 2026*

The book touched base on many important figures in Chicago and in our nation. It is beautifully descriptive in many aspects of the era. I thought in covered many emotions in many degrees. An enjoyable read.

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*Product available on Desertcart Vietnam*
*Store origin: VN*
*Last updated: 2026-05-20*