The Reluctant Spiritualist: A Life of Maggie Fox - Hardcover

Stuart, Nancy Rubin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151010137 ISBN 13: 9780151010134

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005

Synopsis

* Nominated for a New York Historical Society Book Prize in American History * Honorable Mention in General Nonfiction from the American Society of Journalists and Authors Here is the first authoritative biography of Margaret Fox, the world-famous medium and cofounder of the Spiritualism movement that swept America in the mid-1800s. In 1848, fifteen-year-old Maggie and her sister Katy created rapping sounds by manipulating their toe joints, practicing until they convinced their parents that their farmhouse was haunted. What started as a prank soon transformed into a movement: By 1853 more than thirty thousand mediums were at work, with Maggie among the most famous. But when she denounced the faith in 1888-appearing before a packed auditorium in her stocking feet to demonstrate-Spiritualism withered almost as quickly as it had bloomed.

Through the memoirs of the Fox sisters, the letters of Maggie's Arctic explorer husband, contemporary newspaper accounts, and other primary sources, Nancy Rubin Stuart creates a vibrant portrait of a Victorian-era woman at the heart of the tumults of her time.

 

About this title

About the Author:

Nancy Rubin Stuart is the author of several books, including American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post and Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. She lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0151010137
• ISBN 13: 9780151010134
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 393