BOOK REVIEW: Mrs. Lowe-Porter by Jo Salas

Mrs. Lowe-Porter by Jo Salas  is a gorgeous, moving, and infuriating biographical novel, telling the story of Helen Lowe-Porter, the first English translator of Thomas Mann’s monumental works.

I’ve read Buddenbrooks and Joseph and His Brothers, and am awed. I also read Colm Toibin’s biographical novel of Mann, The Magician, which made me determined to read all of Toibin’s novels. So when I saw a review of Mrs. Lowe-Porter, it caught my attention. I’m so glad it did.

Helen Porter was a brilliant, ambitious, creative woman, who struggled against the obstacles women faced in her time (and still do today)—including the necessity of always taking a backseat to men. Despite her many talents, she fell into the trap of deferring to the men in her life and apologizing for the space she wanted to carve out for herself. Helen yearned to be a writer. She was warned by her maiden aunt that, to succeed, she’d have to forego marriage and all the distractions that drained away women’s focus and energy. And yet, she fell in love.

Elias Loew (later Lowe, to hide his Jewish ancestry) was a confident, charming, ambitious academician, a friend of her sister’s, living in Germany. When Helen came to Munich as a long-term tourist, Elias showed her around the city. They became friends. He treated her as one of the guys, until he seduced her. Apparently, he loved her, at least as well as an ego-centric, self-absorbed, condescending jerk could love. His needs, his career, everything about him, always came first. Also, as he explained to her after sleeping with her, sex was a life force. This force was stronger in men than in women. And in him, it was stronger than in other men. So he had to be unfaithful to her. And she had to be understanding.

Yech!

While Elias struggled to get his academic career off the ground, applying for grant after grant with no success, and with a baby on the way, Helen was fortunate enough to get work translating German writings into English. Her big break (or life-crushing event) was being asked by the Knopfs to translate Buddenbrooks.

For most of the rest of her life, she was Mann’s translator. And while she was pleased to do it, recognizing the author’s brilliance and feeling privileged to be trusted with his work, it was nevertheless a thankless job that sapped her creative energy. For all her devotion, meticulousness, and creativity in bringing Mann’s work to an English-speaking audience, she was dismissed as a mere clerk.

The novel is told through short chapters, each an episode in Helen’s life, generally in her viewpoint but sometimes in Elias’, or rarely in their daughter’s or granddaughter’s. The episodes are not strictly chronological. Chapters dated 1963, when Helen is in a nursing home/dementia unit, are interspersed with chapters taking us through her life. The “1963" chapters are particularly heartbreaking. This woman who gave herself so freely to two men, Elias and Thomas Mann, ended up with nothing for herself. 

This is a lyrical, literary novel that will give you a great appreciation for Helen Lowe-Porter, and an urge to track down one of Mann’s masterpieces translated by this remarkable woman.

BOOK REVIEW: Daniel Coit Gilman and the Birth of the American Research University by Michael T. Benson

Something completely different!

I have an interest in the early history of Johns Hopkins University and Hospital (which will be on display in my forthcoming historical novel, Till Taught by Pain, to be published by Regal House in November, 2025). I’m also interested in early U.S. university presidents (such as Robert M. Hutchins, a character in my work-in-progress). So I knew I had to read this biography of the first president of Johns Hopkins, who helped build the university, medical school, and hospital from scratch. The author gave a talk at our local library, which made me even more determined. However, it took two long car rides back and forth to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving before I finally moved it to the top of my TBR pile and read it.

Daniel Coit Gilman and the Birth of the American Research University by Michael T. Benson is an interesting account of Gilman’s life. It centers on his work, without touching upon his private life except to mention that he was married, widowered, remarried, and had two daughters. 

Born in 1831, Gilman devoted his life to the study of education, utilizing (as a young man) a position as an attaché to the ambassador to Russia to tour Europe and Russia and investigate universities there. His interest always seemed to lie more with administration than with teaching. He returned to various positions at Yale before being hired as the president of the University of California as it was getting started. (There is an analysis of the Morrill Act, the government program of land grants for education purposes; both Yale and the University of California made use of such grants.) Although Gilman accomplished a good deal in California, it wasn’t a great fit. (Disgruntled faculty members caused some problems.)

Back in the east, in Baltimore, the Trustees of the board administering the bequests of railroad tycoon Johns Hopkins were tasked with founding a new university. They took their responsibility seriously. Interviewing other educators and university presidents provided the unanimous recommendation of Gilman to head up this new endeavor. Gilman was promised almost complete control over building a true research-oriented university from the ground up. It was an opportunity he couldn’t resist.

This new biography delves into the nitty-gritty of Gilman’s process, the vision he had and the men he hired to bring his vision to life. It goes beyond the founding of Johns Hopkins. Gilman had his finger in many pies, all related to education.

It’s not an adventure-filled story, or even one rife with conflict, but it does bring notice back to the life of this remarkable man. It also shows the reader something of the state of higher education in the mid-to-late eighteen hundreds and the central role of Johns Hopkins University as a premier example of what academic research could become in the U.S.

BOOK REVIEW: Disraeli: The Victorian Dandy Who Became Prime Minister by Christopher Hibbert

 Here is an example of how I tend to over-research. I’m thinking of setting my next historical romance in the late Victorian era rather than Regency England. I’ve been reading about customs, dress, etc. It’s a very broad time period (1837-1901) with a lot of world-changing events and technological advances. A while ago, I read Victorious Century: The United Kingdom, 1800-1906 by David Cannadine, which gave an overview, primarily of the political history. But now I wanted to zero in and focus more on the years around 1875.

So, I decided to read the relevant sections of Disraeli: The Victorian Dandy Who Became Prime Minister by Christopher Hibbert, a biography of Benjamin Disraeli. But I’m rarely ever able to read relevant sections. I need all the context to understand what’s going on. I ended up reading the whole thing.

The book is an interesting take on the prime minister, focusing more on his life than on his politics. Disraeli was supposedly a brilliant speaker and a clever politician. He was also a novelist. Hibbert quotes extensively from Disraeli’s letters, and I got the sense that Disraeli was more convinced of his own brilliance and eloquence than others were. Except for Queen Victoria, who he flattered shamelessly until he became a favorite.

He really sounds insufferable in his early life. By the time he was middle-aged, he’d lost much of his flamboyance and settled into more of a statesmanlike lifestyle. I didn’t get much of a sense of his politics, but that could be because his political aims were power for himself rather than any principled stance on issues. At least, that is the impression from this biography. Rather than outlining his politics, Hibbert quotes letters that list the country houses he visited and the dinner parties he attended. Which ladies he favored. And what a fine impression he was sure that he’d made. 

It isn’t what I was expecting from a biography, but it was nevertheless fascinating. It didn’t inspire me to dig up Disraeli’s novels, but it does make me want to read a biography of his arch-nemesis, Gladstone. 

BOOK REVIEW: Robert Maynard Hutchins: A Memoir by Milton Mayer

I’m oddly fascinated by Robert Maynard Hutchins (one-time president of the University of Chicago) and his wife Maude Phelps McVeigh (a sculptress and author.)  See previous reviews: A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam and An Aristocracy of Critics: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee that Redefined Freedom of the Press by Stephen Bates.

Robert Maynard Hutchins: A Memoir by Milton Mayer is a biography of Hutchins, written by his friend and aide. (Even Mayer had a hard time explaining what he actually did as Hutchins’ aide.) The book does a good job of taking the reader through Hutchins’ professional life and gives a half-hearted nod to his private life. He uses quotes extensively, showing the convictions and contradictions of his subject. And he gives his own interpretation of Hutchins, which varies from fawning to disappointed and sour.

I can recommend this book for its facts, but it’s a slog to read. The prose is turgid. And when Mayer tries to be coy, he’s obtuse. There is humor, but it’s all Hutchins’. I have another biography on my shelf, Unseasonable Truths: The Life of Robert Maynard Hutchins by Harry S. Ashmore, that I’ll try next.

BOOK REVIEW: Georgette Heyer by Jennifer Kloester

I’ve been slipping biographies of writers into my reading list, most recently George Eliot (The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life by Clare Carlisle) and John Donne (Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell.) This time, I turned my attention to the Queen of Regency Romance, Georgette Heyer, one of my favorite authors. (Heyer was born in 1902 and died in 1974.)

Georgette Heyer by Jennifer Kloester is a meticulously researched biography of this talented and fiercely private writer. Like many comprehensive biographies, the book begins even before her birth, with an overview of her parents and grandparents. We learn about her early life, particularly the influence of her father. For my part, I found the childhood portion of the book to be a little too detailed and lengthy. It was slow going at first, but grew more interesting when Georgette reached adulthood and her writing took off.

And take off it did. From her very first published work, The Black Moth, written while she was still a teenager, Heyer found an eager audience. However, it took a long while for her to settle in to writing what she wrote best. She wanted to be taken seriously, and to write big books. (She did write a few non-Romance historical novels.) Moreover, she wrote constantly to keep the wolf from her door. She could turn out short stories with ease. And she wrote a slew of detective novels (contemporary at the time, but that now also read as historical.) These all sold well, but her romances were what her fans clamored for most. It is said that she essentially invented the Regency Romance genre.

The biography focuses a good deal on Heyer’s worries over money. After her father died, she was financially responsible for her widowed mother and, for a long time, her two younger brothers. She also supported her husband until he got his legal career off the ground. They had one son, and during his childhood, Georgette was primary (and at times, only) breadwinner. And yet, the biography makes clear that it wasn’t that her income was insufficient, but rather that she and her husband spent themselves into a financial hole and had a hard time climbing out. This was good news for her fans, since it spurred her to write romance after romance.

It was interesting to see the life circumstances surrounding each of Heyer’s novels. She lived through both World Wars. Family members fought in WWII, a great source of anxiety. There was also a paper shortage. Rationing meant limiting the number of books that could be released and printing them smaller. (Heyer’s books got top priority because they sold so well.)

The biography quotes many of her letters and some of the responses. We peer into her relationships with her agents and publishers. It isn’t always pretty. She was rather thin-skinned, and the impression I got from the book was that she tended to drop people when they were no longer useful to her. She was also a product of her time and her upbringing, which meant she was a bit of a snob and a bigot. We want better from our idols, but they are human. And Kloester’s biography does a great job of revealing Georgette Heyer, warts and all.

BOOK REVIEW: The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life by Clare Carlisle

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

I’m slowly embarking on reading biographies of writers I admire. So I was happy to receive a galley of The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life by Clare Carlisle for review. This biography intertwines the life story of Mary Anne Evans/Marian Evans Lewes/George Eliot with her writing, leaving me with the sense that her novels included a good deal of semi-autobiographical…not events, but emotions.

Eliot was the longtime partner of a man who was legally married to someone else (George Lewes.) However, they were devoted to one another and she always considered herself to be his wife. This was in the mid-nineteenth century, so the scandal it caused cannot be overstated. Running away with Lewes meant breaking with her family and a good many of her friends. 

This was also a time wihen women writers were considered to be “silly female novelists.” In order to find a publisher, and to be taken at all seriously, she had to write under a male pseudonym. 

Carlisle makes all this abundantly clear. She also emphasizes both the positive and negative aspects of their partnership while bringing up philosophical questions about marriage and relationships. Eliot (and her husband) read, studied, and even translated philosophy. These themes found their way into her novels. Carlisle traces the chronological development of Eliot’s writing and correlates it to the philosophies she was engaging with at the time.

This makes for a fascinating literary study, but one that is also fairly dense. Usually when I read author biographies, I come away wanting to add all their work to my TBR pile. This time, I came away more daunted than inspired. I loved Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss. But now I feel like I didn’t read them slowly and carefully enough. And I think that to tackle more of Eliot’s work, I need to be in a classroom. 

George Eliot is a fascinating person, widely regarded as a brilliant novelist who pioneered psychological fiction. This biography explores Eliot’s own psyche and the impact of marriage and her views of marriage on her life and her work.

BOOK REVIEW: Super-infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

I like to think of myself as a John Donne fan but, embarrassingly, that’s based on very little evidence. I knew a tiny bit more about his life story than I did his actual writings. When I saw a blurb for a new(ish) biography, one that incorporates some literary analysis, I decided I needed to read it.

Super-infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell is a fascinating book. It’s a quick read that will immerse you in the life of this brilliant man, give you a sample of his poetry and prose, and introduce you to the love of his life, Ann More. Donne can be (is) difficult to interpret, but Rundell writes with clarity and humor that makes me wish I could take a literature class with her as the professor.

Rundell’s enthusiastic admiration for Donne the man and for his work is contagious. Now I need to read more of his poetry.

BOOK REVIEW: Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmela Ciuraru

Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmela Ciuraru provides short biographies of five literary couples: 1. Una Troubridge and Radclyffe Hall, 2. Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia, 3. Elaine Dundy and Kenneth Tynan, 4. Elizabeth Jane Howard and Kingsley Amis, and 5. Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl. I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t heard of most of these people – and, after this, I am not sure I want to read any of their stuff. 

In most of these marriages, both are writers, while in the last, Patricia Neal is an actress, a similarly consuming career. But in each case, it seems the husband’s career is helped by having a wife while the wife’s career is hampered by her husband’s demands. (The first couple are women in a lesbian relationship, but Radclyffe Hall, who went by “John,” took the role of domineering husband.)

These relationships are marred by infidelity, alcoholism, abuse, and misery. The writers are self-absorbed, egotistical, vain, and cruel – with backstories of unhappiness that didn’t excuse their awful behavior. The book’s message, for me, was: Don’t ever become involved with a writer. But since I imagine other occupations can be similarly all-encompassing, I came away feeling that a lot of people should never marry at all. And if they do, they certainly should not have children.

Still, this book is interesting for its peek into the lives of these large-than-life literary figures. Ciuraru presents the material with clarity and empathy. I learned quite a bit about people I was unfamiliar with – which makes this a winning book for me – even if I’m not inspired to go learn more about them. (They are just too awful.) 

BOOK REVIEWS: Charlotte Corday and Certain Men of the Revolutionary Torment by Marie Cher and Jean Paul Marat. Tribune of the French Revolution by Clifford D. Conner

In an ongoing, random, and probably futile attempt to fill gaps in my knowledge of history, I read two biographies of historical figures of the French Revolution. 

The first is Charlotte Corday and Certain Men of the Revolutionary Torment by Marie Cher. Published in 1929, this is a fascinating book both because of the subject matter and because of the flowery writing style which is rather historical in itself. Charlotte Corday is known to history as the Girondin sympathizer who murdered the revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat by stabbing him in his bath. (It’s not as racy as it sounds.) If you have only a muddy knowledge of eighteenth century French history, seeing some of the events of the Revolution from the perspective of how they shaped this…fanatic…martyr…madwoman…murderess?…is a great way to get a handle on the more than two sides of the issue. It is full of little novelistic details that make Corday visible and real to the reader. Corday is not portrayed as a heroine, but she’s not condemned either. 

The second biography is Jean Paul Marat. Tribune of the French Revolution by Clifford D. Conner. This is a biography of Charlotte Corday’s victim. It also gives a concise analysis of events of the day. The major players and their relationships with Marat are explained. Corday is given a surprisingly small role. Robespierre is mentioned a little, but without insight into his character or explanation of his centrality. Mostly, the book provides a great outline of Marat’s life. However, it is a very biased presentation. The author often presents absence of evidence as evidence when lionizing Marat, and the reasoning may leave you shaking your head. Nevertheless, whether you perceive Marat to be a principled if violent activist, a political terrorist, or something in between, you’ll probably agree Charlotte Corday shouldn’t have assassinated him.

BOOK REVIEW: A Mystery of Mysteries. The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak

 I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

A Mystery of Mysteries. The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak is a new biography of the brilliant Edgar Allan Poe. Best remembered for his beautifully creepy poems and short horror stories, he was also a humorist, a detective story innovator, and a literary critic. 

Rather than starting as biographies typically do, with the subject’s early life, this book begins with the questions surrounding the mysterious circumstances of Poe’s death. Each chapter is introduced with more details about Poe’s last months (creeping up to his last weeks to his last days), then the bulk of each chapter walks the reader through Poe’s life chronologically. 

This format keeps the tension high as theories about the cause of Poe’s death are presented. The difficulty is not that there are no possibilities but that there are too many. Some (like murder and rabies) are discarded, but most of the various illness theories remain in the running. Dawidziak has his favorite, explained in the last chapter, but admits that even this can never be proved.

Edgar Allan Poe did not only have a mysterious death. He also had a short, productive, difficult, and brilliant life. A good deal of mythology has sprung up around him. Dawidziak debunks many of the myths. (Such as he was a habitual drunkard, a laudanum addict, and as gloomy and morose as the characters in his horror stories.) But debunking the myths does not make the man any less fascinating. If you’re interested in a quick study of Poe, this is a great place to start.

BOOK REVIEW: Connected Women by Kate Hodges

 I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Connected Women by Kate Hodges is a clever illustrated collection of mini-biographies of ~ 85 inspiring women from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. Each biography is a page long with a colorful illustration.

The women succeed in many different ways, from aviation to politics to all forms of the arts. Each woman is connected to the one presented before her and after her, either through friendship, inspiration, or some sort of support. For some, the connections are obvious. Others are more subtle. But the book does a good job of showing the network that connects the women.

Although brief and therefore skimming the surfaces of the lives of these extraordinary women, the capsule summaries nevertheless provide enough detail to stimulate interest in finding out more. 

The book is probably best read a little at a time, rather than all at once, so that the names and biographies don’t blur into one another. This would make a lovely gift book for a graduate.

BOOK REVIEW: William Wilberforce: A Biography by Stephen Tomkins

Switching gears, I read William Wilberforce: A Biography by Stephen Tomkins. This is an older biography (from 2007, which isn’t really that old) and is relatively short. It gives a good overview of the man and his times, though given the length, it was relatively superficial.

Each chapter opens with an excerpt from a slave narrative or a snippet of a song from the times that illustrates the horrors of slavery and the slave trade.

The book then takes us through Wilberforce’s life. Born in 1759, Wilberforce lived through tumultuous times. Britain’s colonialism was at its height, but the edges of its empire were fraying. One of the sources of its wealth (although the economics of it were hotly debated) was the slave trade. Men and women were purchased in Africa, transported under horrifically inhumane conditions to the sugar plantations of the West Indies, and sold to the planters. There, they were treated as beasts of burden. The life expectancy was less than seven years. 

Wilberforce was exposed to evangelical Christianity early in life. (At the time, this meant Methodism.) However, in his young adult life, his mother did her best to eradicate that influence and have him adopt the more lukewarm religion of his peers. He did, for a while. Then he entered politics. He inherited money. He involved himself in charitable endeavors. And then, he discovered the abolitionist cause. He returned to Methodism (hesitantly and secretly at first, before throwing himself into it wholeheartedly.) Then he made it his life’s work to abolish slavery. The first step was to stop the slave trade.

I had always believed that England had a more enlightened view of enslavement than did the U.S., but this is not at all true. Wilberforce (and others) tried for many years to get an Act through Parliament to prohibit slave trading. The biography recounts the bitter struggle, the ongoing political wrangling, and the heartbreaking defeats. The most difficult part of the book is reading the justifications of the practice offered up by Englishmen with commercial interests in the trade. (These echo or foreshadow the arguments of Southern plantation owners in the U.S.) Truly appalling inhumanity. 

It took until 1807 before the Act of Parliament banning the slave trade was finally passed. Even then, it did not banish slavery in the colonies. And other, smaller scale operations by other countries continued for years. But the first necessary step was doggedly pursued by William Wilberforce. 

For those interested in the life and times of this extraordinary man, this biography is a good place to start.

BOOK REVIEW: Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer by Nancy C. Unger

Sometimes when I want to learn about a particular historical era, I look for a biography of someone representative of the time. So I just finished the book, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer by Nancy C. Unger. The book is over 20 years old and I’m sure there have been more recent books and previous books on the man, but this one happened to be in my local library, so I started here.

Robert La Follette was a politician from Wisconsin who, along with Teddy Roosevelt, epitomizes the Progressive Reform movement in the early twentieth century. He and Roosevelt fought for many of the same things, but both had huge egos and clashed more than they cooperated.

This biography is a balanced portrait of a man with important, big ideas, but who was, at times, his own worst enemy. He was convinced of his own righteousness and blind to his own flaws. He was prone to exaggeration and refused to compromise. He comes across as truly wanting to do the right thing for “the people,” but not a man I would personally like.

The book does do a good job of explaining many of the issues of the day. It’s disturbing how many of these same issues keep cropping up and never seem to be solved.

While biographies of politicians are definitely not my usual reading choice, this was worth the read.

BOOK REVIEW: The Long Campaign: A Biography of Anne Martin by Anne Bail Howard

With election day just around the corner, I read The Long Campaign: A Biography of Anne Martin by Anne Bail Howard. Anne Martin was a suffragist from Nevada who campaigned tirelessly in the sparsely populated state for women’s right to vote in the early 1900's. At the time, this was a state-by-state issue and Western states were more receptive to women voting than Eastern states. The campaign succeeded, largely due to her efforts.

However, her next endeavor, running for state Senator, was pretty well doomed from the start. Aside from the fact that she was female, and there had never been a female U.S. senator, Martin had made enemies (or at least, detractors) because of some of her earlier work (more militant suffragist work in England and a couple of arrests for protesting) as well as her pacifist stance in the lead-up to WWI. She had hoped the newly enfranchised women of Nevada would recognize the significance of electing a female senator and vote as a bloc, but they did not.

Frustrated by this and by the lack of progress of the national movement for women’s suffrage, Martin turned her attention to writing and her political efforts toward the peace movement.

The biography focuses on her early life and influences, her political awakening, and her activism. It discusses her various connections and friendships, those that were long-lasting and those where she and the friends eventually fell out, usually over politics. Martin could be charming and inspiring, but she was also a hard taskmaster and bull-headed in her opinions.

The book is an interesting look at a woman who was a pivotal figure in her time, but who is largely forgotten in ours. Currently, it’s hard to wrap our minds around the fact that women were excluded from the democratic process when it is so self-evident that women are every bit as deserving of the vote as men. The hard work and sacrifices of the women (and men) who fought so hard for equality a century ago should not be forgotten. And the right to vote should not be taken for granted.

BOOK REVIEW: Wellington. The Iron Duke by Richard Holmes

I am squeezing in one more book review before the end of the year. One of my Christmas presents this year was the biography, Wellington: The Iron Duke by Richard Holmes. I wanted to balance the biography of Napoleon with one of Wellington. 

This book is only about 300 pages, as opposed to Napoleon: A Life, which was nearly 1000. So it is nowhere near as comprehensive, but as a trade-off is a much quicker read. Despite its brevity, it presented a detailed, balanced discussion of Wellington’s life with a concentration on the military history. It whet my appetite to learn more about the man, but not right away.

If you’re interested in a very good overview, one that gives a good sense of the man and his accomplishments (though less of a sense of the times), this biography is just right.

BOOK REVIEW: Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

 As part of my plan to increase my knowledge of the Regency Era, I thought I really needed a better handle on Napoleon. I knew the basics: French General, French Emperor, lover of Josephine, defeated at Waterloo. Also that he was not only a brilliant military commander but also an innovative administrator. But, overall, kind of a bad guy.

Wanting more detail, I plunged into what is called the definitive biography, Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts. This is a superb biography. It did, unfortunately, take me a very long time to read and bogged down my reading progress in general. (I took a couple of breaks, but always felt guilty reading other things.)  I finally finished it today. I’m pleased to note that my basic knowledge was basically correct.

This is a comprehensive birth-to-death biography. The bulk of the detail is centered on his military career, which makes sense. However, for a reader like me who zones out when the battle tactics are described in depth and who skips over battlefield maps, it was more than I needed. It was fascinating in a big picture way, but the details will never stick with me.

More impressive to me was the way the book touched on the personality of the emperor, showing his hubris and his (possibly feigned at times) humility, his wit, his sang-froid, and his extraordinary charisma. His micro-managing attention to detail boggles the mind. His superhuman energy (especially in his younger days) is hard to fathom. And his intelligence, memory, and analytical skills are as impressive today as they were to his contemporaries. 

It’s impossible to come away from this biography unimpressed with Napoleon. At the same time, without the benefit of being exposed to his personal charm, it was impossible for me to come away from it favorably impressed in the balance. The wake of death and destruction his ambitious empire building left across Europe was enormous. And despite his protestations that everything he did, he did for France – he was clearly doing it for personal glory and profit. I found myself astonished by the magnitude of his victories, yet rooting against him the whole time.

BOOK REVIEW: The Most Hated Man in Kentucky: The Lost Cause and the Legacy of Union General Stephen Burbridge by Brad Asher

 History buffs, particularly readers interested in the U.S. Civil War, Kentucky history, or “Lost Cause-ism,” should put Brad Asher’s latest book, The Most Hated Man in Kentucky: The Lost Cause and the Legacy of Union General Stephen Burbridge on their reading lists.

This newly-released biography of Kentuckian Stephen Burbridge primarily focuses on the 11 months (March 1864-February 1865) when Burbridge was the military commander of Kentucky. Ambitious and fervently Unionist, Burbridge had the unenviable task of shepherding the state through a period of enlistment of Black soldiers into the Union Army. Asher makes a compelling case that it was the commander’s willingness to enlist slaves, a process that resulted in their emancipation and sounded the death-knell for the continuation of slavery in the state, that earned him the enmity of white Kentuckians, whether they be Confederate sympathizers or Unionists.

Burbridge had a storied career that included varying degrees of success as a soldier and commander, followed by the near-impossible tasks of 1) recruiting enough Kentucky soldiers to serve the war effort AND protect the state from Confederate raiders and guerillas, and 2) navigating the wartime and post-war politics of the divided loyalties of Kentuckians. These included those fully committed to the Union cause and those only nominally committed, so long as there was no Federal interference with their “right” to own other human beings. To that mix, one must throw in Confederates returning to the state following the war and swaying the sympathies of the state to the Lost Cause of the South. This succeeded to the extent that, even today, many people have a hard time believing that Kentucky was not part of the Confederacy.

Burbridge, whose zeal for the cause of the winning side should logically have seen him rewarded with post-war political appointments, instead became such a lightning rod for Kentuckians’ anger at the war’s outcome (emancipation) that he became a pariah. He spent the remainder of his life exiled from his home and regarded as the state’s most hated man.

This meticulously researched, readable, scholarly work brings to light a little-remembered Civil War Union leader—little remembered outside of Kentucky, at least—and, through the lens of his life, examines broader issues of historical memory and the enduring myths of the Lost Cause.

Full-disclosure: the author of this superb biography is my brilliant husband! That didn’t influence this review (but it’s the reason I read the book!)

BOOK REVIEW: Why She Wrote by Lauren Burke, Hannah K. Chapman and Kaley Bales

 I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Why She Wrote: A Graphic History of the Lives, Inspiration, and Influence Behind the Pens of Classic Women Writers by Lauren Burke, Hannah K. Chapman, and Kaley Bales is an interesting book highlighting female authors presented in an original way. 

Eighteen authors are showcased including well-known figures like the Brontes, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Louisa May Alcott, as well as more obscure writers like Elizabeth Gaskell, Frances E.W. Harper, Edith Maude Eaton, and others.

Grouped into sets of three, the text explores six themes that loosely tie each of the three together. Short biographies are provided, followed by a few pages of a graphic novelization of an event or turning point in the author’s life.

While the biographies are necessarily short and cursory, they are a fine jumping off point for those interested in these writers and an encouragement to seek out more. The graphic history portions provide vignettes that help to fix the information in the reader’s mind and individualize the women.

Bibliographies are given for each author and there is also a list of resources for further reading.

BOOK REVIEW: Mary Elizabeth Garrett: Society and Philanthropy in the Gilded Age by Kathleen Waters Sander

Mary Elizabeth Garrett: Society and Philanthropy in the Gilded Age by Kathleen Waters Sander is a conventional-type biography (first published in 2008 and re-released this spring) of an unconventional Baltimore woman in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century.

Mary was the daughter of B&O railroad tycoon, John Work Garrett. A typically ruthless “robber baron,” Garrett amassed a fortune and became one of the leading citizens of the city. During the Civil War, when Baltimore tottered on the edge of the North/South divide, Garrett threw in with Lincoln despite the Southern sympathies of many in his family, largely because he believed it was in his economic interest (and Baltimore’s) to do so.

John Garrett was no philanthropist, but he was a good friend of both George Peabody and Johns Hopkins, exceedingly wealthy Baltimoreans who left huge bequests to found institutions in the city after their deaths. Mary Garrett, who served as her father’s secretary, was witness to this large scale philanthropy and absorbed its lessons.

Despite, or perhaps because of, her father’s increasing dependence upon her business acumen, Mary was not allowed to pursue her own interests or to marry. Although her brothers were given significant roles in the family companies and became millionaires, Mary was given only a “small” allowance and her expenditures had to be approved. This was painfully frustrating for a woman who possessed a better head for finance than either of her brothers.

However, many of the restrictions placed upon her disappeared after her father’s death, when she received roughly a third of the family fortune.

Unfortunately for the family’s long-term relationships, the bequests were all intertwined and caught up in the value of the railroad stock. This led, down the road, to a falling out between the siblings and especially between Mary and her sisters-in-law.

Mary’s share, whether or not she had been cheated out of a significant sum by her brothers’ accounting irregularities, was substantial, making her one of the wealthiest women in the country. As she was unmarried, the money remained hers to control. Mary was determined to use it to help women.

To that end, with the help of four close female friends, she established a prep school for girls in Baltimore. Then she turned her attentions to the newly-established Johns Hopkins Hospital and University. Part of the bequest of her father’s friend Hopkins was supposed to establish a medical school in conjunction with the university. However, the Johns Hopkins endowment was also tied up in B&O stock. When the railroad’s fortunes declined, the money for the university began to run out. The medical school was hopelessly behind schedule and seemed doomed to fail.

Mary Garrett is best remembered for her program of “coercive philanthropy.” She spearheaded fund-raising for the medical school, eventually contributing nearly the entire sum herself, but set conditions on the gift. The main condition was that women must be admitted on the same basis as men. There were medical colleges for women at the time, but they were recognized to have inferior resources to those of medical schools for men. Coeducation for physicians was a practically heretical ideal, but Mary was determined to push for it.

The biography does a wonderful job of demonstrating just what an uphill battle it was to found the Johns Hopkins Medical School on a co-educational principle. 

The book also shows aspects of Mary’s personal life: her circle of friends, her falling out with her family, her health issues. She was an intensely private person, so these parts of her life are less well fleshed out than her more public philanthropies.

Mary Garrett was, in any case, a fascinating woman, and this well-researched biography is highly recommended.

BOOK REVIEW: Short Years: The Life and Letters of John Bruce MacCallum M.D. by Archibald Malloch

 I just finished a beautiful old book, published in 1937, called Short Years: The Life and Letters of John Bruce MacCallum, M.D. by Archibald Malloch.

MacCallum was a turn-of-the-twentieth century, Canadian-born, Johns Hopkins-trained physician/scientist who devoted his short life to experimental medicine. He started out as a morphologist, most known for his work on heart muscle, and ended up an experimental physiologist. He was also a poet, an author of short stories, and a prodigious letter writer.

The book is primarily a chronological collection of edited letters. The author (Malloch) annotates them so that the story flows well but he very effectively keeps himself out of it as much as possible to let MacCallum be the one to breathe life into his own story. The writing is achingly beautiful, full of dreams, aspirations, love of research, love of friends, loneliness, and also humor, imagination, and optimism. I found myself reading passages out loud to my husband because they were just so striking. 

What gives this book particular depth and poignancy is that the young physician/scientist contracted tuberculosis while a medical student. Although in earlier letters the dreaded diagnosis is only hinted at, he worked in a place where the symptoms were very readily recognized, tuberculosis was rampant in American society, and his older brother was also a physician. John MacCallum undoubtedly knew his diagnosis and prognosis from the very first. 

He devoted himself to work, accomplishing an extraordinary amount in his short years, despite his physical limitations. He made friends wherever he went, and his death was hard felt by a large community of medical and non-medical people from Canada to Baltimore to Berkeley. 

He also had two romantic friendships with women with whom he corresponded for many years. It’s unclear how the relationships might have progressed had he been healthy, but it does seem that his illness put up a wall against marriage, even if he had been inclined to pursue it. The book has a very early-twentieth-century way of preserving the anonymity of these women, referring to one as “Miriam,” which was not her real name, and the other as “the poetess.” It’s frustrating not to be able to identify who they were and it seems time erased the trails. And yet, their identities don’t really matter.

One of the fascinating things about the book is how MacCallum will write to a friend, to his parents, to his mentor, and to his brother letters covering the same event, written within a couple of days, and put different spins on it for each audience. He might use the same turn of phrase a couple of times, but then elaborate on or play down his thoughts on what he’d done or what took place. It gives a more rounded picture of the man and really humanizes him.

I love epistolary novels, and this book reads like one. It makes me wish people still wrote like this. Instantaneous communication is wonderful, but what a loss for the literary world and for future historians to think that people’s voices won’t be preserved in this way for posterity.