Hacked By Demon Yuzen

Among the glittering tales of the Gilded Age's famous tycoons of lies the little known story of America's glamorous and scandalous 'Empress of Journalism'. 

A pioneer in an all-male industry, Miriam Leslie ran one of the country's largest publishing empires despite having started her life as a teenage prostitute.  

Diamonds & Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Gilded Age Female Tycoon by Betsy Prioleau reveals the sensational life story of Leslie, who was both the subject and writer of various gossip columns. 

Born to a gambler father and a mother, kawan99 who was most likely a slave, Miriam - who was reportedly biracial - became one of Manhattan's most esteemed courtesans before embarking on a decade-long affair with one of Americas wealthiest publishers. 

However one of the most shocking decisions of Miriam's life is when she deigned to leave her two million fortune to any family member - instead leaving it to the feminist movement she had mocked throughout her life.  

Mrs.

Frank Leslie was born Miriam Follin in New Orleans in 1836 to a father named Charles Follin and a mother who was 'anyone's guess'. 

Charles was a gambler who had married Caroline Carrere Trescot, a wealthy widow from Charleston who owned a valuable rice plantation left to her and her two young daughters. 

After his gambling debts consumed her rice plantation just two months after they married, the family moved to New Orleans with around six slaves - one of whom was likely Miriam's mother. 

Caroline died in New Orleans in 1833 and Miriam's official mother was his second wife Susan Danforth, who didn't meet the child until she was six. 

Soon after Miriam's birth her father declared bankruptcy.

As a young woman she decided to petition the courts to appoint her wealthier Uncle Adolphus as her guardian.  

For two years Uncle Adolphus funded her education, but by the time she was 17 had relinquished the role of guardian - leaving Miriam to find her own source of income in a world with few opportunities for women. 

Attracted by the idea of earning five dollars a night with 'a modicum of autonomy', Miriam spent her 'fiery youth' working in one of Manhattan's 500 brothels under the name 'Minnie'. 

Despite not being 'conventionally pretty', Miriam would met wealthy clients at public balls where she would eventually earn enough money to fund her 'passion for expensive jewelry'. 

During one of her frequent visits to Baldwin & Co.

jewelers on Broadway she met David C. Peacock, a 'gay young fellow' who she would offer 'favors in exchange for the loan of certain diamond pieces in the display case'. 

However scandal would soon embroil Miriam when her mother Susan discovered the truth and demanded Peacock be arrested for criminal seduction - punishable by up to five years in prison. 

To avoid jail the pair married, however they never lived together and Minnie continued to see clients throughout their short marriage. 

Miriam's career became far more lucrative when she joined forces with Lola Montez a 'world-­renowned stage star and manslayer' who took Minnie under her wing and cast her as her 'sister' in an East Coast theatrical tour. 

Irish-born Montez was one of the most famous courtesans in New York - with her 'risqué spider dance and dramatized feats' earning her $1,000 a week. 

While renowned for her beauty, Montez was often caught up in scandal - having allegedly slapped a prompter in Boston, battered her maid in New Orleans, and bit the officer who tried to arrest her. 

Minnie had a brief liaison with married Tennessee congressman William M.

Churchwell, but by had struck up a relationship with archaeologist and scholar Ephraim G. Squier - with whom she had a legitimate marriage. 

A successful writer who would become editor-in-chief for Frank Leslie's publishing house in 1860, Squier was thirty-five, fifteen years Miriam's senior and had a possible case of syphilis. 

Their marriage got off to a rocky start when his businesses and construction projects fell into financial disarray amid one of the worst economic downturns in twenty years. 

Soon he would gain a job working for Frank Leslie's publishing house Illustrated Newspaper, a successful tabloid which made the publisher one of the richest men in America. 

Despite having a wife back in England, Frank was described as an 'exceptional catch', having built his company from the ground up to become a pioneer in print technology. 

When they met at Abraham Lincoln's inaugural ball in 1861, Frank's admiration for her obvious - describing her as 'the acknowledged belle of the ball.' 

Over the next 10 years, Miriam and Frank would embark on a blatant affair which saw her sharing adjacent bedrooms with her love during trips with her husband. 

Miriam thrived after being made editor of Leslie's ladies' magazines and published books she translated from French and Spanish to English.   

By 1872, Leslie was granted a divorce from his estranged wife, while Squier had become too sick to work, often drunk or delusional from his illness and occasionally violent towards Miriam. 

Shortly after Frank divorced his wife, he was duped into allowing Miriam a divorce when Leslie's sketch artists threatened to publish drawings of Squier cheating on his wife with prostitutes.  

The pair were finally married in 1874, but Miriam did not remain faithful - engaging in an affair with poet and nineteenth century literary celebrity Joaquin Miller - which continued for 30 years -  less than a year after their wedding.   

When Frank died in 1880 Miriam was left everything, including his bankrupt business and debts and changed her name legally changed to Frank Leslie to secure her hold on the company amid a bitter court case with his two sons. 

'There must be no doubt about her claim to the company and her authority in a misogynistic male-dominated industry', wrote Prioleau. 'A woman at the head of a business empire was unheard-of and profoundly threatening.' 

Miriam now prevailed over hundreds of male employees, many of whom had given evidence against her in the court case against Frank's sons, and 'twelve languishing publications'. 

Having secured a short term loan from a fellow widow Miriam set to work reshaping the business - with her her journalistic talents obvious from the start.  

When President Garfield was shot, Miriam instantly sent two artists to Washington to cover the scene and became the only newspaper to provide images of the assassination. 

Her reporters covered the event extensively, visiting the Presidents bedside before his death and the prison cells of the murderer - with their paper's circulation boosted from 33,000 to 200,000. 

The ongoing coverage of the event was so successful that her company was saved and over the next two decades, she would become one of the wealthiest women in America at the company's helm. 

As she prevailed over the business, Miriam continued to have a string of lovers -  including Joseph Pulitzer's brother and an Armenian prince - and was engaged twice, to a poet and Russian prince. 

While abroad in 1891, Miriam Leslie married Willie Wilde, the older brother of playwright Oscar Wilde.

However two years later they were divorced and she moved to London with her sons, Willie and Oscar. 

There she became an established author and ran a Saturday salon 'that attracted an eclectic mix of cognoscenti' like George Bernard Shaw and William Butler Yeats.  

One of Miriam's most surprising moves came after her death in 1914, when she left everything she had to the feminist movement she had often mocked in her periodicals. 

She had met Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, at meetings of the Women's Press Club and nobody had noticed Miriam 'contrived to talk longer with her than with the other guests.' 

Despite 'nearly everyone' wanting a piece of her estate, she left the bulk of her two million-dollar estate to Carrie Chapman Catt for 'the furtherance of the cause of Woman's Suffrage,' with no strings attached.'  

'Mrs.

Leslie, one of the least visible suffragists, donated the largest sum ever given to the vote for women—a gift never exceeded', wrote Prioleau.

Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age by Betsy Prioleau (Abrams Press, £21.99) Out now