Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography
"Thoroughly absorbing, lively . . . Fuller, so misunderstood in life, richly deserves the nuanced, compassionate portrait Marshall paints." and#8212; Boston Globe
Pulitzer Prize finalist Megan Marshall recounts the trailblazing life of Margaret Fuller: Thoreauand#8217;s first editor, Emersonand#8217;s close friend, daring war correspondent, tragic heroine. After her untimely death in a shipwreck off Fire Island, the sense and passion of her lifeand#8217;s work were eclipsed by scandal. Marshalland#8217;s inspired narrative brings her back to indelible life.
Whether detailing her front-page New-York Tribune editorials against poor conditions in the cityand#8217;s prisons and mental hospitals, or illuminating her late-in-life hunger for passionate experienceand#8212;including a secret affair with a young officer in the Roman Guardand#8212;Marshalland#8217;s biography gives the most thorough and compassionate view of an extraordinary woman. No biography of Fuller has made her ideas so alive or her life so moving.
and#8220;Megan Marshalland#8217;s brilliant Margaret Fuller brings us as close as we are ever likely to get to this astonishing creature. She rushes out at us from her nineteenth century, always several steps ahead, inspiring, heartbreaking, magnificent.and#8221; and#8212; Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity
and#160;
"Shaping her narrative like a novel, Marshall brings the reader as close as possible to Fullerand#8217;s inner life and conveys the inspirational power she has achieved for several generations of women." and#8212; New Republic
Review
"Megan Marshall's brilliant Margaret Fuller brings us as close as we are ever likely to get to this astonishing creature. She rushes out at us from her nineteenth century, always several steps ahead, inspiring, heartbreaking, magnificent." and#8212; Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of
Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity"Megan Marshall gives new meaning to close readingand#8212;from words on a page she conjures a fantastically rich inner life, a meld of body, mind, and soul. Drawing on the letters and diaries of Margaret Fuller and her circle, she has brought us a brave, visionary, sensual, tough-minded intellectual, a and#8216;first womanand#8217; who was unique yet stood for all women. A masterful achievement by a great American writer and scholar.and#8221; and#8212; Evan Thomas, author of Ikeand#8217;s Bluff: President Eisenhowerand#8217;s Secret Battle to Save the World
"Megan Marshalland#8217;s Margaret Fuller: A New American Life is the best single volume ever written on Fuller. Carefully researched and beautifully composed, the book brings Fuller back to life in all her intellectual vivacity and emotional intensity. Marshalland#8217;s Fuller overwhelms the reader, just as Fuller herself overwhelmed everyone she met. A masterpiece of empathetic biography, this is the book Fuller herself would have wanted. You will not be able to put it down." and#8212; Robert D. Richardson, author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire
"Fullerand#8217;s was a great life, flush with drama, and Megan Marshalland#8217;s new biography rises to it in ways small and large . . . This one pitches Ms. Marshall into the front rank of American biographers . . . 'Margaret Fuller' is as seductive as it is impressive . . . In Ms. Marshall, Fuller has found what feels like her ideal biographer." -- New York Times "A lively, intuitive study of a remarkable American character.and#8221;and#160; and#8212; Kirkus Reviews
"The book's success comes from the way that Marshall allows the reader to understand and empathize with Fuller in her plight."and#160;and#8212;and#160; Publishers Weekly and#160; "[Marshall] inhabits Fullerand#8217;s dramatic, oft-told story with unique intimacy by virtue of her fluency in and judicious quoting of Fullerand#8217;s extraordinarily vivid letters . . . Marshall brings stirring historical and psychological insights to Fullerand#8217;s complicated relationship with Emerson and the other transcendentalists, her journey west and response to the horrific plight of Native Americans, her gripping dispatches on social ills as a front-page columnist for Horace Greeleyand#8217;s New York Tribune, and her triumphs in Europe as 'Americaand#8217;s first female foreign correspondent.' How spectacularly detailed and compassionate Marshalland#8217;s chronicle is of Fullerand#8217;s scandalous love for an Italian soldier, the birth of their son, her heroic coverage of the 1849 siege of Rome, and her and her familyand#8217;s tragic deaths when their ship wrecks in sight of the American coast. A magnificent biography of a revolutionary thinker, witness, and writer." and#8212;Booklist starred review
Synopsis
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for BiographyFrom an early age, Margaret Fuller provoked and dazzled New England s intellectual elite. Her famous Conversations changed women s sense of how they could think and live; her editorship of the Transcendentalist literary journal the Dial shaped American Romanticism. Now, Megan Marshall, whose acclaimed The Peabody Sisters discovered three fascinating women, has done it again: no biography of Fuller has made her ideas so alive or her life so moving.
Marshall tells the story of how Fuller, tired of Boston, accepted Horace Greeley s offer to be the New-York Tribune s front-page columnist. The move unleashed a crusading concern for the urban poor and the plight of prostitutes, and a late-in-life hunger for passionate experience. In Italy as a foreign correspondent, Fuller took a secret lover, a young officer in the Roman Guard; she wrote dispatches on the brutal 1849 Siege of Rome; and she gave birth to a son.
Yet, when all three died in a shipwreck off Fire Island shortly after Fuller s fortieth birthday, the sense and passion of her life s work were eclipsed by tragedy and scandal. Marshall s inspired account brings an American heroine back to indelible life.
"
Synopsis
Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody were in many ways our American Brontes. The story of these remarkable sisters — and their central role in shaping the thinking of their day — has never before been fully told. Twenty years in the making, Megan Marshall's monumental biograpy brings the era of creative ferment known as American Romanticism to new life. Elizabeth, the oldest sister, was a mind-on-fire thinker. A powerful influence on the great writers of the era — Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau among them — she also published some of their earliest works. It was Elizabeth who prodded these newly minted Transcendentalists away from Emerson's individualism and toward a greater connection to others. Mary was a determined and passionate reformer who finally found her soul mate in the great educator Horace Mann. The frail Sophia was a painter who won the admiration of the preeminent society artists of the day. She married Nathaniel Hawthorne — but not before Hawthorne threw the delicate dynamics among the sisters into disarray. Marshall focuses on the moment when the Peabody sisters made their indelible mark on history. Her unprecedented research into these lives uncovered thousands of letters never read before as well as other previously unmined original sources. The Peabody Sisters casts new light on a legendary American era. Its publication is destined to become an event in American biography.
This book is highly recommended for students and reading groups interested in American history, American literature, and women's studies. It is a wonderful look into 19th-century life.
Synopsis
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography
The award-winning author of The Peabody Sisters takes a fresh look at the trailblazing life of a great American heroineand#8212;Thoreauand#8217;s first editor, Emersonand#8217;s close friend, first female war correspondent, passionate advocate of personal and political freedom.
Synopsis
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and#160; From an early age, Margaret Fuller provoked and dazzled New Englandand#8217;s intellectual elite. Her famous Conversations changed womenand#8217;s sense of how they could think and live; her editorship of the Transcendentalist literary journal the Dial shaped American Romanticism. Now, Megan Marshall, whose acclaimed
The Peabody Sisters and#8220;discoveredand#8221; three fascinating women, has done it again: no biography of Fuller has made her ideas so alive or her life so moving.
Marshall tells the story of how Fuller, tired of Boston, accepted Horace Greeleyand#8217;s offer to be the New-York Tribuneand#8217;s front-page columnist. The move unleashed a crusading concern for the urban poor and the plight of prostitutes, and a late-in-life hunger for passionate experience. In Italy as a foreign correspondent, Fuller took a secret lover, a young officer in the Roman Guard; she wrote dispatches on the brutal 1849 Siege of Rome; and she gave birth to a son.
Yet, when all three died in a shipwreck off Fire Island shortly after Fullerand#8217;s fortieth birthday, the sense and passion of her lifeand#8217;s work were eclipsed by tragedy and scandal. Marshalland#8217;s inspired account brings an American heroine back to indelible life.
Synopsis
“Pitches Ms. Marshall into the front rank of American biographers . . .
Margaret Fuller is as seductive as it is impressive . . . It delivers a lovely and bumpy coming-of-age story, one of the best such stories nineteenth-century America has to offer.” —
New York Times Pulitzer Prize finalist Megan Marshall recounts the trailblazing life of Margaret Fuller: Thoreaus first editor, Emersons close friend, daring war correspondent, tragic heroine. After her untimely death in a shipwreck off Fire Island, the sense and passion of her lifes work were eclipsed by scandal. Marshalls inspired narrative brings her back to indelible life.
Whether detailing her front-page New-York Tribune editorials against poor conditions in the citys prisons and mental hospitals, or illuminating her late-in-life hunger for passionate experience—including a secret affair with a young officer in the Roman Guard—Marshalls biography gives the most thorough and compassionate view of an extraordinary woman. No biography of Fuller has made her ideas so alive or her life so moving.
About the Author
Megan Marshall is the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography and memoir. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, and Slate. A recipient of Guggenheim and NEH fellowships, Marshall teaches narrative nonfiction and the art of archival research in the MFA program at Emerson College.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrationsand#8195;xiii
Prologueand#8195;xv
Part I: Youth
and#160;and#160;and#160;1.and#160;and#160;and#160;Three Lettersand#8195;5
and#160;and#160;and#160;2.and#160;and#160;and#160;Ellen Kilshawand#8195;10
and#160;and#160;and#160;3.and#160;and#160;and#160;Theme: and#8220;Possunt quia posse videnturand#8221;and#8195;20
and#160;and#160;and#160;4.and#160;and#160;and#160;Marianaand#8195;28
Part II: Cambridge
and#160;and#160;and#160;5.and#160;and#160;and#160;The Young Ladyand#8217;s Friendsand#8195;39
and#160;and#160;and#160;6.and#160;and#160;and#160;Elective Affinitiesand#8195;51
Part III: Groton and Providence
and#160;and#160;and#160;7.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;My heart has no proper homeand#8221;and#8195;71
and#160;and#160;and#160;8.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;Returned into lifeand#8221;and#8195;89
and#160;and#160;and#160;9.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;Bringing my opinions to the testand#8221;and#8195;105
Part IV: concord, boston, jamaica plain
and#160;and#160;and#160;10.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;What were we born to do?and#8221;and#8195;127
and#160;and#160;and#160;11.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;The gospel of Transcendentalismand#8221;and#8195;142
and#160;and#160;and#160;12.and#160;and#160;and#160;Communities and Covenantsand#8195;163
and#160;and#160;and#160;13.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;The newest new worldand#8221;and#8195;202
Part V: New York
and#160;and#160;and#160;14.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;I stand in the sunny noon of lifeand#8221;and#8195;223
and#160;and#160;and#160;15.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;Flying on the paper wings of every dayand#8221;and#8195;235
and#160;and#160;and#160;16.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;A human secret, like my ownand#8221;and#8195;244
Part VI: Europe
and#160;and#160;and#160;17.and#160;and#160;and#160;Lost on Ben Lomondand#8195;269
and#160;and#160;and#160;18.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;Rome has grown up in my souland#8221;and#8195;282
and#160;and#160;and#160;19.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;A being born wholly of my beingand#8221;and#8195;315
Part VII: homeward
and#160;and#160;and#160;20.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;I have lived in a much more full and true wayand#8221;and#8195;353
and#160;and#160;and#160;21.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;No favorable windand#8221;and#8195;369 and#160; Epilogue: and#8220;After so dear a stormand#8221;and#8195;379
Acknowledgmentsand#8195;393
Notesand#8195;397
Indexand#8195;451