This is the first book-length biography of Sarah Ripley (1793-1867), a resident of Concord and acquaintance of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and other figures of the New England Renaissance. A Unitarian minister's wife and the mother of a large family, she never published anything but was known in her circle for her teaching and intellectual achievements. As freelance writer Goodwin shows, Ripley was torn between her desire to break out of the role reserved for women and her sense of duty as wife and mother. Her letters make clear how she eventually settled the conflict within herself. It would have helped, though, if Goodwin had included a genealogy to keep track of the many births, marriages, and family relationships in Ripley's life. This affecting portrait of an unsung heroine is for those interested in 19th-century American religion, literature, and women's studies. For larger academic collections.‘Morris Hounion, New York City Technical Coll. Lib., Brooklyn (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Mrs. Ripley, a contemporary of Emerson and Hawthorne, is descended from the leading families in U.S. history. And though she is mentioned in the works of those contemporaries and is considered to have been a strong influence on their work, she left no writing of her own. She was a self-taught classical scholar whose formal education was cut short because of family responsibilities. Along with her role as a minister's wife and mother of a large family, she made use of her intellect and training in preparing boys at the school run by her husband for admission to Harvard. She was able to do all that without ever leaving what was considered the proper "woman's sphere." In this fully researched scholarly biography, Goodwin makes use of letters, diaries, and other primary sources to present for the first time a complete picture of this extraordinary woman's life, which will appeal to historians, feminists, and other readers of detailed biography. --Danise Hoover