The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American RomanticismHMH, 2006 M05 11 - 624 pages Pulitzer Prize Finalist: “A stunning work of biography” about three little-known New England women who made intellectual history (The New York Times). Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody were in many ways the American Brontës. 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 biography brings the era of creative ferment known as American Romanticism to new life. Elizabeth Peabody, the oldest sister, was a mind-on-fire influence on the great writers of the era—Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau among them—who also published some of their earliest works; it was she who prodded these newly minted Transcendentalists away from Emerson’s individualism and toward a greater connection to others. Middle sister Mary Peabody was a passionate reformer who finally found her soul mate in the great educator Horace Mann. And the frail Sophia, an admired painter among the preeminent society artists of the day, married Nathaniel Hawthorne—but not before Hawthorne threw the delicate dynamics among the sisters into disarray. Casting new light on a legendary American era, and on three sisters who made an indelible mark on history, Marshall’s unprecedented research uncovers thousands of never-before-seen letters as well as other previously unmined original sources. “A massive enterprise,” The Peabody Sisters is an event in American biography (The New York Times Book Review). “Marshall’s book is a grand story . . . where male and female minds and sensibilities were in free, fruitful communion, even if men could exploit this cultural richness far more easily than women.” —The Washington Post “Marshall has greatly increased our understanding of these women and their times in one of the best literary biographies to come along in years.” —New England Quarterly |
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
57 | |
Elizabeth 18211824 | 101 |
Mary and Elizabeth 18251828 | 145 |
Sophia 18291832 | 187 |
Somerset Court and La Recompensa 18331835 | 235 |
Before the Age in Salem 18361839 | 305 |
Other editions - View all
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women who Ignited American Romanticism Megan Marshall Limited preview - 2005 |
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women who Ignited American Romanticism Megan Marshall Limited preview - 2005 |
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women who Ignited American Romanticism Megan Marshall No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
Alcott Allston American Antiochiana August began Berg Betsey Boston Brookline brother Channing’s copy Cranch Cuba daughter Eliza Palmer Elizabeth Palmer Peabody Elizabeth Peabody Elizabeth wrote England entry EPP journal EPP to EPP EPP to MTP EPP to SAP father feel felt genius George girls Harvard Hawthorne’s HM Papers hoped Horace Mann intellectual knew Lancaster later Letters of EPP Lidian live Lydia Mann’s Margaret Fuller Maria Chase marriage married Mary wrote Mary’s Massachusetts mind mother MVWC Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Peabody never NH to SAP painting Peabody Family Papers Peabody sisters Peabody’s Ralph Waldo Emerson Rem of WEC Reverend Channing Royall Tyler Salem SAP journal April SAP to EPP seemed September Smith Sophia Peabody Sophia wrote Straker typescripts Street teaching Transcendental Transcendentalists Tyler Unitarian Waldo Emerson Washington Allston wife William Ellery Channing woman women writing young