Log in to track your reading progress.
Overview
In 1869 America was recovering from the devastation of the Civil War. But a love story and its violent outcome in New York upstaged all else in newspapers across the country. Abby Sage, a beautiful actress, suffered through and finally escaped from an abusive marriage when her jealous ex-husband murdered her alleged lover - acclaimed Civil War journalist Albert Deane Richardsonin the lobby of the New York Tribune. The ensuing trial captivated the imagination of America and began a fiery debate about the sanctity of marriage and the rights of women. Lost Love brings this celebrated but forgotten case to life. With the eye of a journalist and the heart of a novelist, George Cooper weaves newspaper accounts, trial transcripts, period illustrations, and letters written by the lovers into an irresistible narrative. The story sweeps from the war-torn South to the new Western frontier, from small-town New England to the drawing rooms of New York's aristocracy. Cooper also introduces us to some of the most notable figures of the day - Horace Greeley, Edwin Booth, and Henry Ward Beecher among them - for Abby and Albert's lives and the tragedy of their love touched people far and wide. Lost Love vividly rekindles the passion of a love affair more than a century old as it captures the smoldering fervor of America's "age of innocence" - when marriage was still held sacred but the flames of free love and the rise of feminism could be seen just over the horizon.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Drawing on newspaper accounts, courtroom transcripts and correspondence, Cooper, a former law professor at Columbia University, has fashioned a moving and vivid account of a 19th-century New York City love story and murder. Physically abused for years by her alcoholic husband, Daniel McFarland, Abby Sage took their two children and left him in 1867. Supporting herself by acting, she fell in love with Albert Deane Richardson, a noted Civil War journalist, who asked her to marry him. After the divorce was granted, an enraged and jealous McFarland shot and killed Richardson in the lobby of the New York Tribune in 1869. Cooper posits that McFarland's subsequent acquittal--the jury determined that he was insane when he shot Richardson--was due to prevailing societal regard for the sanctity of marriage and hostility to the emerging women's rights movement. Abby pursued her acting and speaking career and died of pneumonia while traveling in Italy in 1900. Cooper's account is dramatic, evenhanded and, ultimately, an illuminating portrait of a strong and admirable woman. Photos. (Apr.)Book Details
Published
March 1, 1994
Publisher
Pantheon Books
Pages
272
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780679433989