Finding Margaret Fuller

Pataki (The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post) takes readers on a trans-Atlantic journey in this winning fictional biography of Transcendentalist writer Margaret Fuller (1810–1850). In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson offers the 26-year-old scholar a job as editor of his magazine the Dial in Concord, Mass. She accepts, but strikes out on her own several months later because the magazine is unable to earn enough money to cover her salary. After publishing two successful books, including one focused on inequities faced by women, she travels to Rome in 1847 as a foreign news correspondent to witness what she and her boss, Horace Greeley, hope will be the birth of the nation of Italy. In Rome, the perpetually lonely Margaret at last meets and marries a man who appreciates her active mind. In 1848, Italy joins the wave of nationalist democratic revolutions against monarchies across Europe, and Margaret hides in the countryside to give birth to her son. On the way back to Rome to be with her husband, a member of the nationalistic Civil Guard, she is nearly killed in an attack, and she and her family depart for America. Pataki’s star-studded and gripping account is full of lush details about the life of an overlooked contributor to Transcendentalism and women’s rights. This is one to savor. Agent: Lacy Lynch, Dupree Miller & Assoc. (Mar.)