Joan D. Hedrick is the author of Solitary Comrade: Jack London and His Work, and the Director of Women's Studies and Associate Professor of History at Trinity College, Hartford.

The first biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe in over fifty years tells the absorbing story of this gifted, complex and contradictory woman. Hedrick takes readers into the world of 19th century morals, exploring the influence of then-popular ideas of "true womanhood" on Stowe's upbringing as a member of the outspoken Beecher clan, and her eventful life as a writer and shaper of public opinion.