Bedford Public Library

The Peabody sisters, three women who ignited American romanticism, Megan Marshall

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

collective biography

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The Peabody sisters

bibliography

Megan Marshall

three women who ignited American romanticism

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 Bront?s. 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.

Origins, 1746-1803 -- The family school, 1804-1820 -- Elizabeth, 1821-1824 -- Mary and Elizabeth, 1825-1828 -- Sophia, 1829-1832 -- Somerset Court and La Recompensa -- "Before the age in Salem," 1836-1839 -- 13 West Street, Boston, 1840-1842