The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall

The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall is a beautifully written account of the lives of Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody who lived in the Boston area and associated with the intelligensia of the early 1800s. Mary married Horace Mann, known as "the father of American public education." Sophia married Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of "The Scarlet Letter." Elizabeth was a teacher who knew Emerson and Thoreau and was involved in Boston's Unitarian movement led by William Ellery Channing. She also corresponded with the English poet William Wordsworth. The lives of the Peabody women are told from a personal point of view with thoughtful psychological insight. And for the historians among us, their association with the movers and shakers of the day in a place of intellectual ferment makes for compelling reading.