Barbara Goldsmith is a social historian and the author of Little Gloria...Happy at Last and Johnson v. Johnson. She lives in New York City.
"Ms. Goldsmith's absorbing, sweeping book is a portrait of an age, with the scandalous Victoria Woodhull' at its center. . . . [With] the richness of its narrative, the complex and morally nuanced portraits of its characters . . . you finish Ms. Goldsmith's extraordinary story nearly out of breath . . . astonished at the tragic heroism of the flawed character who tried to challenge the American establishment."-- Richard Bernstein, "New York Times""What a great cast of mountebanks, lechers, spiritualists, sexual revolutionaries, and scheming politicians populate Barbara Goldsmith's fine portrait of an era that resembles the 1990's in America."-- Jim Hoagland"Immensely readable . . . a masterly job."-- "San Francisco Chronicle"An often brilliant, multi-tentacled exploration of Victorian sexual politics."-- "The New Yorker""Goldsmith's research into Woodhull's milieu is prodigious, and the story she has to tell is never less than fascinating."-- "Boston Globe""[Goldsmith] is a master of quotation, smoothly extracting from one after another lengthy letter or transcript the nub that captures the human heart of the matter being addressed."-- "Los Angeles Times""A meticulously researched, marvelous rendering of an intriguing era and one of the women who helped make it so. . . . History is anything but boring when Victoria Woodhull is the topic."-- "Kirkus Reviews""History at its finest: vivid, inclusive, insightful."-- "Booklist""It's hard not to be swept away in [Goldsmith's] remarkable story."-- "Chicago Tribune
Women's rights advocate Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) was a spiritualist, clairvoyant, faith healer and apostle of free love who maintained that her spirit guide had set her on a mission to create a social revolution. These facts, downplayed by her previous biographers, are at the center of Goldsmith's riveting portrait. Raised by an ignorant, brutalized mother and a tyrannical father who apparently sexually abused her, Ohio-born Victoria Claflin eloped at 15 with Canning Woodhull, a morphine-addicted, alcoholic doctor. A destitute actress and prostitute, she went from rags to riches by becoming a financial adviser, as well as a trance medium, for blustering, sexually insatiable New York railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt. In 1870, Woodhull founded Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly (with her sister, Tennessee Claflin), a newspaper that argued for women's rights, though, in time, her outspoken views on free love would split the women's movement. As Goldsmith (Little Gloria... Happy at Last) reveals, Woodhull had her eye on the political prize: in her 1872 presidential campaign against Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley, she blackmailed rival suffragists into supporting her by threatening to publish articles in her newspaper exposing their sexual behavior. Election Day found Woodhull in jail on charges of libel and obscenity for her exposé of Brooklyn revivalist preacher Henry Ward Beecher's extramarital affair with the wife of his best friend, newspaper editor Theodore Tilton. She moved to England in 1877, shed her past and married a wealthy British banker. Through Woodhull's life, Goldsmith's colorful, well-researched saga speaks volumes about the oppression of women in Victorian America. Illustrations. (Mar.)
"Ms. Goldsmith's absorbing, sweeping book is a portrait of an age, with the scandalous Victoria Woodhull' at its center. . . . [With] the richness of its narrative, the complex and morally nuanced portraits of its characters . . . you finish Ms. Goldsmith's extraordinary story nearly out of breath . . . astonished at the tragic heroism of the flawed character who tried to challenge the American establishment."-- Richard Bernstein, "New York Times""What a great cast of mountebanks, lechers, spiritualists, sexual revolutionaries, and scheming politicians populate Barbara Goldsmith's fine portrait of an era that resembles the 1990's in America."-- Jim Hoagland"Immensely readable . . . a masterly job."-- "San Francisco Chronicle"An often brilliant, multi-tentacled exploration of Victorian sexual politics."-- "The New Yorker""Goldsmith's research into Woodhull's milieu is prodigious, and the story she has to tell is never less than fascinating."-- "Boston Globe""[Goldsmith] is a master of quotation, smoothly extracting from one after another lengthy letter or transcript the nub that captures the human heart of the matter being addressed."-- "Los Angeles Times""A meticulously researched, marvelous rendering of an intriguing era and one of the women who helped make it so. . . . History is anything but boring when Victoria Woodhull is the topic."-- "Kirkus Reviews""History at its finest: vivid, inclusive, insightful."-- "Booklist""It's hard not to be swept away in [Goldsmith's] remarkable story."-- "Chicago Tribune
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
