History Commons^™

After reading these three recently published books on the peabody sisters, no one would question that they were extraordinary women. beginning with Patricia Dunlavy Valenti’s biography of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, these volumes provide welcome—and needed—complements to the many biographies and literary studies of her husband, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

No longer just the headache-stricken companion to the famous author, Sophia Hawthorne emerges in Valenti’s volume “on her own terms,” in her multiple roles as daughter, sister, artist, friend, writer, nature-lover, playful sensualist, mother, intellectual companion, and wife (x). To demonstrate Sophia’s influence on her husband—surprisingly new territory, as Valenti notes in her …