Muse of the Revolution : The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation

by Stuart, Nancy Rubin

• ISBN13: 9780807055168
• ISBN10: 0807055166
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-07-01
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

Praised by her mentor John Adams, Mercy Otis Warren was America's first woman playwright and female historian of the American Revolution. In this unprecedented biography, Nancy Rubin Stuart reveals how Warren's provocative writing made her an exception among the largely voiceless women of the eighteenth century. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Author Biography

Nancy Rubin Stuart is an award-winning author, journalist and writer-producer who specializes in women and social history. Her previous books include The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox, American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post, and Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen. In connection with her work she has appeared on several national television series and on NPR's "Morning Edition." Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and many national magazines. She currently serves as one of the directors of the Women Writing Women's Lives Seminar at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. While researching Mercy Otis Warren, she received a 2005 William Randolph Hearst Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society. She lives in Manhattan with her husband.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Daughter of Liberty
A Pen As Explosive As Gunpowder	p. 3
Fires, Civil and Domestic	p. 19
"Neither the pen nor the tongue of a lawyer"	p. 33
The Patriots' Secret Pen	p. 45
"No one has at stake a larger share of domestic felicity"	p. 57
"Perhaps the whole land be involved in blood"	p. 69
Conscience of the Revolution
Reporter of Revolutionary Events	p. 83
A Still Calm Within, Violent Concussions Without	p. 97
"Ladies are the greatest politicians"	p. 109
"The hand often shrunk back from the task"	p. 121
"War has ever been unfriendly to virtue"	p. 133
The Patriot Historian
Views from Neponset Hill	p. 147
Hope Is an Airy Queen	p. 159
The Public Is a Monster Seldom Guided by Reason	p. 171
"The fair fabric of a free, strong and national republic"	p. 183
"Too federal to talk freely"	p. 195
Penwoman to Posterity
"A sister's hand may wrest a female pen"	p. 209
"Alas, humiliated America!"	p. 221
A Sea Change in Party Politics	p. 233
"In the spirit of friendship"	p. 245
"Blessed are the peacemakers!"	p. 257
Acknowledgments	p. 269
Notes	p. 273
Bibliography	p. 287
Index	p. 299
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.