"Manhattan Monologues charts a colorful New York century through a series of personal accounts from the rarefied circle that fills Auchindoss's best short fiction. Here are characters who confidently finesse their way through society's uppermost tiers and yet are just as easily undone by the smallest upset in a day. Like all of Auchincloss's richest creations, they bump up against their consciences, with often surprising results.

What, for instance, is a woman to do when she must choose between true love and high society when making a marriage? How can a man stay true to himself, his family, and his country when it goes to war? How can a determined marriage broker salvage matters when the young man she has so painstakingly steered toward a love match becomes charmed by another woman?".

"These tales, and many more, fashion a glamorous yet all too human societal portrait - from the aristocratic loyalties of the early twentieth century to the complicated twists of modern-day mergers and acquisitions."--BOOK JACKET.