PeaceBang

The Peabody Sisters: Recommended Summer Reading

May 11, 2007 on 7:12 am | In Shout-Outs, TV/Movies/Theatre/Book Reviews |

Tim and I went to see Megan Marshall talk about her marvelous book, The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism at the Winchester Public Library last week.

I am filled with admiration for Ms. Marshall, who took twenty years to write this monumental contribution to 19th century history, and particularly to women’s history. If you’re an Emerson or Thoreau fan, a Horace Mann or Nathaniel Hawthorne groupie, a student of Unitarian history or just American history, if you just want to know more about the roots of American literary culture, or if you have a sister, don’t miss this book.

The main character, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, is a bit of an exhausting gal to keep up with (learning Hebrew as a child so that she could read the Old Testament in the original and that sort of thing), so I couldn’t read straight through the book. It’s so beautifully researched I couldn’t just do my usual munch-it-up-like-candy routine and put it back on the shelf. It’s still on my kitchen table just because I’m not ready to put those girls away quite yet.

Can’t recommend it highly enough to you.

There’s a fascinating theme woven throughout the book about 19th century medicine, the condition sometimes referred to as “neurasthenia” (think all those “nervous” women taking to their beds for extended periods and you’ll know what I mean). Sophia Peabody suffered from chronic migraines and her ailments, psychological and physical, are well-documented and analyazed by Marshall.

I was well-acquainted already with Margaret Fuller’s nervous condition, and with Lidian Emerson’s long periods sequestered in her bedroom and began to wonder about all of this. Was sickness, as Marshall suggests, one way for 19th century women to exert some control over their schedules and their individual destinies?

To help me understand that question, I am now reading Barbara Ehrenrich and Deidre English’s classic, For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of The Experts’ Advice to Women.

But what I’m really looking forward to is Megan Marshall’s next biography on Ebe Hawthorne, Nathaniel’s eccentric and reclusive sister who once remarked to Sophia Peabody that she didn’t need the excuse of infirmity to claim “the power to withdraw.”

Hurry, Megan! Your devoted fans await!