{"product_id":"free-love-the-story-of-a-great-american-scandal-paperback","title":"Free Love: The Story of a Great American Scandal - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eRobert Shaplen\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eLouis Menand\u003c\/b\u003e (Foreword by)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA wry, instructive, and hugely entertaining account of \"one of the most sensational trials in American history\" (\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOn the night of July 3, 1870, Elizabeth Tilton confessed to her husband that she'd had an affair with their pastor, Henry Ward Beecher. This secret would soon transfix America, for Beecher was the most famous preacher of the day, founder of the most fashionable church in Brooklyn Heights, a presidential hopeful, an influential supporter of Abolition, and a leader of the campaign for women's suffrage. When Beecher tried to silence the Tiltons, it was a whisper network of suffragists, notably Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who spread news of the affair, and it was the radical Victoria Woodhull--an outspoken proponent of \"free love\"--who seized on it, as political dynamite, to blow up the myth of monogamy among the political elite. Her public accusations led to even more public trials, which shocked the country and divided the most progressive thinkers of the era. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In 1953, the journalist Robert Shaplen revisited the Tilton-Beecher affair in a series of articles for the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, relying on 3,000 pages of contemporary accounts--court transcripts, love-letters, newspaper reports and illustrations, even political cartoons--to reanimate a scandal that shook the American reform movement and to expose a strand of America's cultural DNA that remains recognizable today.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRobert Shaplen \u003c\/b\u003e(1917-1988) began reporting in the Pacific theater during World War Two and became one of America's most influential experts on East Asia in the postwar era. He was Far East correspondent for the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e from 1962 to 1978, and remained a \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e staff writer for the rest of his life. He published ten books, including one novel and one story collection. \u003ci\u003eFree Love\u003c\/i\u003e (originally titled \u003ci\u003eFree Love and Heavenly Sinners\u003c\/i\u003e) was his only foray into nineteenth-century American history. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eLouis Menand\u003c\/b\u003e is an award-winning essayist, critic, author, professor, and historian, best known for his Pulitzer-winning book \u003ci\u003eThe Metaphysical Club\u003c\/i\u003e, an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America.\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 264\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.79 x 8.5 x 5.12 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e April 16, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51748932747552,"sku":"9781946022912","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/47c80ac5133d3416a9fbe863ea6c3aff.webp?v=1779920509","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/free-love-the-story-of-a-great-american-scandal-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}