THE PEABODY SISTERS OF SALEM

A vibrant, colorful and interesting biography of three fascinating blue-stockings central figures in the major literary-educational controversies and developments of the mid-19th century. There was the kindly, hard-driven Dr. Peabody and his ambitious, domineering wife, their meagre existence of genteel poverty. There were three daughters:- Mary, self-effacing, imposed upon, who ultimately married the brilliant Horace Mann. There was Sophia, beautiful, fragile, gifted, who married Hawthorne, as an escape from her doting mother. There was Elizabeth, the indomitable Lizzie Peabody, educator, transcendentalist, crusader, friend of the Concord group, first Froebel kindergartner in America. First rate reading.