Agnes Surriage, it turns out, was more Pygmalion than Cinderella. Her role models were the fiercely independent codfish widows, ? wives of the early Marblehead fishermen who managed home and family seven months a year without their husbands. In Agnes's version of My Fair Lady, she had to act as her own Henry Higgins while making the often painful transformation from girl of all works? at the Fountain Inn to the charming and dignified Lady Agnes, wife of Sir Charles Henry Frankland. After deconstructing the legend for twenty-five years, author F. Marshall Bauer has unearthed a story of money, lust and vindication.

Frederic Marshall Bauer began his creative career as an advertising copywriter in the early 1970s. After a decade and a half performing functions ranging from television producer to creative director, he became a freelance audiovisual screenwriter and creative consultant. From 1977 to 1998, he wrote and produced over two hundred videos and computer-based programs for marketing and training. He was the coauthor, with Dr. Albert Forgione, of Fearless Flying: The Complete Program for Relaxed Air Travel, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1981. An avid eighteenth-century history student and reenactor, he was the drummer for Glover's Marblehead Regiment from 1975 to 1996 and today represents Regimental Surgeon Nathaniel Bond. His home is situated on the site of the Old Fountain Inn, where Charles Henry Frankland discovered Agnes Surriage.