About Amy Vanderbilt: Amy Vanderbilt is still in circulation. The most recent edition (ISBN 0-385-41342-4) was edited by Nancy Tuckerman and Nancy Dunnan. Its longtime popularity has led to it being considered a standard of etiquette writing.
Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.
I am a journalist in the field of etiquette. I try to find out what the most genteel people regularly do, what traditions they have discarded, what compromises they have made.
We must learn which ceremonies may be breached occasionally at our convenience and which ones may never be if we are to live pleasantly with our fellow man.
The modern rule is that every woman should be her own chaperone.
