After reading a few chapters, I decided this book held no interest for me at this time nor was it a good fit for my blog.  I elected not to finish the book now, but it may well be a case of "the wrong book at the wrong time" syndrome and I might be willing to try it again in the future.  Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to sample this title.

I'm always disappointed when a choir sings the Battle Hymn of the Republic as a dirge--it is a crackling, angry song, alive with frustration and violence.  Knowing more about its author explains a lot--Julia Ward, chafing under Calvinist paternal strictures, married an 1840s celebrity philanthropist, progressive and abolitionist under the impression that he would support her writing and ambitions.  Instead, this man who was a pioneer in educating the disabled, champion of freed slaves and hero of the Greek wars of independence resented her money, stifled her creativity and expected a Victorian clinging vine.   Producing the verses that became the anthem of the union's civil war launched Julia into celebrity of her own, and an equal status in the power couple, with enormous personal fallout.  Showalter digs into the trove of family papers, reconstructing fragments of Julia's unpublished writing, translate the discreet between-the-lines comments in women's letters and sets the Howes in the context of the couples in their social circle.