Finding Margaret Fuller by Allison Pataki – 416 pages
ARC from Ballentine Books and Netgalley for an honest review
Book Blurb:
Massachusetts, 1836. Young, 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 shaping a nation in the throes of its own self-discovery. By the end of her stay, she will become “the radiant genius and fiery heart” of the Transcendentalists, a role model to young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration to Nathaniel Hawthorne and his scandalous Scarlet Letter, a friend to Henry David Thoreau as he ventures into the woods of Walden Pond . . . and a muse to Emerson himself. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama, and she finds her restless soul in need of new challenges and adventure.
And so she charts a singular course against a backdrop of dizzying historical drama: From Boston, where she hosts a women-only literary salon for students like Elizabeth Cady Stanton; to the editorial meetings of The Dial magazine, where she hones her pen as its co-founder; to Harvard’s library, where she is the first woman to study within its walls; to the gritty New York streets where she spars with Edgar Allan Poe and reports on the writings of Frederick Douglass. Margaret defies conventions time and again as an activist for women and an advocate for humanity, earning admirers and scathing critics alike.
My Review: 5 stars
Finding Margaret Fuller by Allison Pataki took me on a journey into the past with the most celebrated authors of our time, one of which is Margaret Fuller. I am a veracious reader, one who loves historical fiction, so I was shocked that I never knew about the incredibly talented and young feminist Margaret Fuller. Thank you, Allison, for sharing her story!
I was mesmerized, wait shocked, to know how close so many of our famed novelists resided so close together. What a star-studded place Concord, Massachusetts was. I just couldn’t imagine how they all looked so thank you Google for putting faces to the characters. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, the Alcott family, and Hawthorne were some of the characters in the novel. I loved getting to know these characters as people, not just as the authors of their books. Sometimes when we read these books from so long ago, the author becomes just a name, and we forget about the lives they led in the early 1800s.
Margaret was a brilliant, forward-thinking woman who ignited a spark for women’s independence. She started salons for women to learn about the world and open their minds to possibilities outside of being a housewife. Her contributions to society and equality were immense and important.
This novel opened my eyes to the past in a different way than other books have. Perhaps because the characters were familiar to me or how simple their lives could be. I loved that nature was often the inspiration for their art, poetry, and stories. Margaret was a muse for Emerson and a motivated mentor for Louisa May Alcott. I wonder how Margaret may or may not have inspired Louisa May’s writing of Little Women.
Pataki has taken on many historical women, some known, some unknown, and brought them to life. No matter the time period – from Sisi to Peggy Shippen Arnold to Desiree Clary to Marjorie Post, and more, her books will simultaneously entertain you and teach you!
Quotes I liked:
But nothing untoward happens-ours is a kinship of the mind.”
“The earth laughs in flowers.”
“The Much that always wants More.”
“Why should women not be allowed to think, as men do? To learn, to ask,
to speak? Are our minds any less capable? Any less worthy?”
“Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.”
“That there really ought to be no such thing as a woman’s job and a man’s job. That looking at the world in such a narrow way does a great disservice, not only to men and women but to society as a whole. A woman is a human, and as such, has a right to know her own worth, to pursue self-realization and satisfying work, same as any man.
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