Mr. Emerson's Wife

Written by Amy Belding Brown

325 pages

Published by St. Martin's Press

Review by Charles Langston

Receives:

In Mr. Emerson's Wife Amy Belding Brown creates a fascinating view of one of America's greatest minds, the brilliant Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, and, more specifically, his wife, Lidian. This is a story of just how restrained women were only two centuries ago and how choices can affect one's life.

The story begins with Lidian, who appears at first glance to be prim and proper but as we see her character unfold we see just how different she is from other women around her. She is highly intelligent and opinionated, and she seeks to live with great integrity and few regrets. She captures the attention and imagination of Mr. Emerson when he comes to lecture in her Massachusetts town. She is not flirtatious or flimsy like the other women around her. She is thoughtful and mindful of remaining single lest she become merely part of a couple instead of an individual. She has made the decision not to marry, yet she is swept off her feet by Emerson and his promises of a marriage that would be suitable to them both. However, once they are married Lidian finds that marriage to Ralph Waldo Emerson was not all that she thought it would be and she falls in love with Emerson's protégé, Henry David Thoreau.

This is indeed a novel, as Belding Brown herself admits in the Author's Note at the end of the book: “Although I have included many real events from Lidian's life in the novel, her motivations, perspective, and personality are my invention…It tells what ‘might have been.'” If one is not deterred by the knowledge that some of the “facts” are questionable (how much proof do we have in a Lidian-Thoreau relationship?) and that this is not to be taken as a literal account of the life of Ralph Waldo or Lidian Emerson, then one will find him or herself immersed in a fluid, energetic tale about a woman who wishes to remain true to herself despite the demands placed upon her by society. Many people have been disappointed by marriage, and this is a novel that articulates that deep pain. The characters, though perhaps not drawn entirely truthfully as to the facts, are drawn convincingly as characters in a novel should be, with multiple dimensions and sensitivity. Fans of both historical fiction and those who are interested in Ralph Waldo Emerson and/or Lidian Emerson will be pleased to read this novel about “what might have been.”

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Charles Langston is a writer and a teacher from Fort Lee, New Jersey.