First published 2025
Margaret Fuller arrives in Massachusetts in 1836 to meet Ralph Waldo Emerson and his circle of Transcendentalist thinkers. She quickly becomes the intellectual heart of their movement, mentoring young Louisa May Alcott and inspiring writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau. But Margaret wants more than literary salons and philosophical discussions. She breaks barriers as Harvard's first female library researcher and co-founds The Dial magazine to sharpen her writing skills. Moving to New York, she debates with Edgar Allan Poe and covers Frederick Douglass's work as a journalist. When Horace Greeley sends her to Europe as America's first female foreign correspondent, Margaret mingles with luminaries like Frederic Chopin and George Sand. In Rome, she falls in love with a count, bears his child, and joins Italy's fight for unification. This sweeping novel follows a woman who refused to accept the limits society placed on her, transforming herself from Boston intellectual to international activist while changing the world around her.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, american, biographical-fiction, 19th-century, activism, academic, american-history
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-fiction, literary-fiction
Setting: Europe, Harvard, Italy, Massachusetts, New York, Rome
Period: 1836, 19th-century
432 pages · Paperback · Ballantine Books