A review by tonstantweader
The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe by Elaine Showalter

4.0

I have been eagerly waiting for The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe to work its way up the hold list at the library ever since I read a little paragraph promoting it. I was intrigued by the suggestion that her own life was a civil war seeking her own emancipation. It is written by Elaine Showalter who writes with an engaging style and who occasionally addresses to the reader directly. She knows what we’re asking and she pauses to answer. It is unusual approach and I liked it.

I was captured by the book on page 13 when Julia Ward wrote about first reading George Sand. When she was young, her father carefully censored her reading, only some Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Shelley, and hymns. Her brother came home from a trip to Europe and she snuck some books from his library, including this shocking book by this shocking woman. “We knew our parents would not have us read her, if they knew. Yet we read her at stolen hours…the atmosphere grew warm and glorious about us,—a true human company, a living sympathy crept near us—the very world seemed not the same world after as before.” She began to write and even published a few poems.

Read the rest of the review at

http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/05/29/the-civil-wars-of-julia-ward-howe-by-elaine-showalter/