Finding Margaret Fuller: A Novel,New

A sweeping (Entertainment Weekly) novel of Americas forgotten leading lady, the central figure of a movement that defined a nationfrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie PostWhether exploring Margarets remarkable friendships or delving into her crucial legacy as a journalist, writer, and feminist, Finding Margaret Fuller promises to transform every reader it touches.Marie Benedict, coauthor of The Personal LibrarianYoung, brazen, beautiful, and unapologetically brilliant, Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the celebrated Sage of Concord, to meet his coterie of enlightened friends. There she becomes the radiant genius and fiery heart of the Transcendentalists, a role model to a young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthornes Hester Prynne and the scandalous Scarlet Letter, a friend to Henry David Thoreau as he ventures out to Walden Pond . . . and a muse to Emerson. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama, and her restless soul needs new challenges and adventures.And so she charts a singular course against a backdrop of dizzying historical drama: From Boston, where she hosts a salon for students like Elizabeth Cady Stanton; to the editorial meetings of The Dial magazine, where she hones her pen as its cofounder; to Harvards library, where she is the first woman permitted entry; to the gritty New York streets where she spars with Edgar Allan Poe and reports on Frederick Douglass. Margaret defies conventions time and again as an activist for women and an advocate for humanity, earning admirers and critics alike.When the legendary editor Horace Greeley offers her an assignment in Europe, Margaret again makes history as the first female foreign news correspondent, mingling with luminaries like Frdric Chopin, William Wordsworth, George Sand and more. But it is in Rome that she finds a world of passion, romance, and revolution, taking a Roman count as a loverand sparking an international scandal. Evolving yet again into the roles of mother and countess, Margaret enters the fight for Italys unification.With a starstudded cast and sweeping, epic historical events, this is a story of an inspiring trailblazer, a woman who loved big and lived even biggera fierce adventurer who transcended the rigid roles ascribed to women and changed history, all on her own terms.