Mr. Emerson’s Wife
This novel about Ralph Waldo Emerson's wife, Lidian, examines the emotional landscape of love and marriage. Living in the shadow of one of the most famous men of her time, Lidian becomes deeply disappointed by marriage, but consigned to public silence by social conventions and concern for her children and her husband's reputation. Drawn to the erotic energy and intellect of close family friend Henry David Thoreau, she struggles to negotiate the confusing territory between love and friendship while maintaining her moral authority and inner strength. In the course of the book, she deals with overwhelming social demands, faces devastating personal loss, and discovers the deepest meaning of love. Lidian eventually discovers the truth of her own character and learns that even our faults can lead us to independence.
Praise for Mr. Emerson’s Wife
“This is the book I longed to read. This is the story of Lidian, the fascinating woman who was loved insufficiently by Emerson and perhaps too much by Thoreau. Amy Belding Brown has brought her back to life in a novel that glitters with intelligence and authenticity.”
““In this extraordinary book, Amy Belding Brown has brought the 19th century to life. We may think of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family and friends as static daguerreotypes, but in this story they lightly spring off the page with all the inconvenient desires and ambitions that are the texture of our lives. A souring, imaginative leap, this book combines detailed history with a page-turning illicit love story. It’s a look at a rich moment in American history and a great read, a rare combination.”
“Mr. Emerson’s Wife engages with intelligence and passion the mind of Lidian Emerson and what is found are the staggering daily compromises and
frustrations of an intellectual 19th century woman. Bless all the conflicted freedoms she sought and bless too Amy Belding Brown for delivering us a robust novel that situates itself with grace and struggle in feminine consciousness among the Concord men. ”
“Amy Belding Brown’s novel is a beautiful work that renders effortlessly the sentiments and sensuousness of a woman who is, to use Ms. Brown’s own terms, “at war with herself, a woman of opposites who yearns to reconcile her mental acuity with her emotional sensitivity.” The spiritual, emotional and intellectual lives she is after illuminating for us are wonderfully ambitious, and it is quite refreshing to see that ambition backed up with a quality of writing that bears up to the weight of its subject matter.”
Mr. Emerson’s Wife now available unabridged on audio at audible.com and wherever audiobooks are sold!
The Mystery of Mr. Emerson’s Wife
Over the course of eight years, as I researched and wrote Mr. Emerson’s Wife, I became particularly intrigued by the dynamics of Lidian’s relationship with both Emerson and Thoreau. The many questions that spurred my research engaged me in a sort of literary and historical mystery.
Why was the 47-year-long marriage of Ralph Waldo Emerson to Lidian Jackson treated so sparingly in biographies of Emerson, while his 18-month marriage to his first wife had entire chapters and even 2 books devoted to it.
Lidian was known in her home-town, Plymouth, as a brilliant woman who loved a good rousing debate. In Concord she’s portrayed as meek and shy. Why the discrepancy?
Henry Seidel Canby, the author of a 1939 biography of Thoreau, devotes more than a chapter to his theory that Thoreau was in love with Emerson’s wife.
While there is no documentation of Lidian’s feelings for Thoreau, we do know that she and her daughter burned many of her letters and papers before her death. It’s hard to believe that Lidian, as lonely and intense as she was, wouldn’t have responded to Thoreau’s interest.
Delores Bird Carpenter, the only scholar to do work on Lidian’s papers, maintains that Thoreau’s relationship with Lidian was emotionally and intellectually close and that the chemistry between them suggests sexual tension. Although Carpenter believes the relationship was never consummated, I think the evidence can be read differently, as I’ve demonstrated in my novel. My conclusions are considered provocative and controversial by both Emerson and Thoreau scholars.
Thoreau left his cabin at Walden Pond at Lidian’s request. The Emerson marriage was not good and Emerson was restless when he decided to travel to Europe. Lidian asked that Thoreau live with her while Emerson was away. He had lived with the Emersons before, for two years, during which he spent much of his time as helper and companion to Lidian.
Emerson arranged for Thoreau’s job on Staten Island after he had lived in the Emerson house for two years – between 1841 and 1843. Emerson had spoken to Nathaniel Hawthorne about Thoreau’s presence in the house, referring to it as “an inconvenience.”
Emerson’s charisma attracted young bright women, including Margaret Fuller, who often stayed at the Emerson’s, residing in a room across the hall from Emerson’s study. There was a strong emotional attachment between Fuller and Emerson and they sometimes took moonlight walks or visited each other in their rooms late at night.
There was a deep and inadequately explained rift in the friendship between Emerson and Thoreau during and after Emerson’s trip to Europe in 1847.
When Thoreau died, Emerson took over all the arrangements for his funeral and burial. He delivered the eulogy, which is a slanted view of a “passionless” Thoreau.
Immediately after Thoreau’s funeral, Emerson secluded himself in his study for a month with Thoreau’s journals. He was totally absorbed in them. Was he looking for something? Did he find it? We know that pages have been torn from those journals. Who tore them out, and why? I have my own ideas about these torn pages, which I’ve incorporated into the novel.
In 1864, Louisa May Alcott published a novel titled Moods, a love triangle in which the competing male characters are based on Emerson and Thoreau. Louisa noted in her journal that a Concord woman came to her and asked “how did you know?” Louisa protested that she didn’t know but may have guessed. The woman isn’t named, but the Emersons lived only ½ mile from and were close friends of the Alcotts, so Louisa was certainly familiar with their situation.
The Transcendental Bible
A Satirical Essay by Lidian Jackson Emerson
Whole Duty of Man
Never hint at a Providence, Particular or Universal. It is narrow to believe that the Universal Being concerns itself with particular affairs, egotistical to think it regards your own. Never speak of sin. It is of no consequence to 'the Being' whether YOU are good or bad. It is egotistical to consider it yourself; who are you?
Never confess a fault. You should not have committed it and who cares whether you are sorry?
Never speak of Happiness as a consequence of Holiness. Do you need any bribe to well-doing? Cannot you every hour practise holiness for its own sake? Are you not ashamed to wish to be happy? It is egotistical--mean.
Never speak of the hope of Immortality. What do you know about it? It is egotistical to cling to it. Enough for the great to know that "Being" Is. He is quite content to drop into annihilation at the death of the body.
Never speak of affliction being sent and sent in kindness; that is an old wives' fable. What do you know about it? And what business is it of ours whether it is for our good or not?
Duty to your Neighbour
Loathe and shun the sick. They are in bad taste, and may untune us for writing the poem floating through our mind.
Scorn the infirm of character and omit no opportunity of insulting and exposing them. They ought not to be infirm and should be punished by contempt and avoidance.
Despise the unintellectual, and make them feel that you do by not noticing their remark and question lest they presume to intrude into your conversation.
Abhor those who commit certain crimes because they indicate stupidity, want of intellect which is the one thing needful.
Justify those who commit certain other crimes. Their commission is consistent with the possession of intellect. We should not judge the intellectual as common men. It is mean enough to wish to put a great mind into the strait-jacket of morality.
It is mean and weak to seek for sympathy; it is mean and weak to give it. Great souls are self-sustained and stand ever erect, saying only to the prostrate sufferer "Get up, and stop your complaining." Never wish to be loved. Who are you to expect that? Besides, the great never value being loved.
If any seek to believe that their sorrows are sent or sent in love, do your best to dispel the silly egotistical delusion.
If you scorn happiness (though you value a pleasant talk or walk, a tasteful garment, a comfortable dinner), if you wish not for immortal consciousness (though you bear with impatience the loss of an hour of thought or study), if you care not for the loss of your soul (though you deprecate the loss of your house), if you care not how much you sin (though in pain at the commission of a slight indiscretion) if you ask not a wise Providence over the earth in which you live (although wishing a wise manager of the house in which you live), if you care not that a benign Divinity shapes your ends (though you seek a good tailor to shape your coat), if you scorn to believe your affliction cometh not from the dust (though bowed to the dust by it), then, if there is such a thing as duty, you have done your whole duty to your noble self-sustained, impeccable, infallible Self.
If you have refused all sympathy to the sorrowful, all pity and aid to the sick, all toleration to the infirm of character, if you have condemned the unintellectual and loathed such sinners as have discovered want of intellect by their sin, then are you a perfect specimen of Humanity.
Let us all aspire after this Perfection! So be it.