Norman Lock

When U.S. Army chaplain Robert Winter first meets Emily Dickinson, he is fascinated by the brilliance of the strange girl immersed in her botany lessons. She will become his confidante, obsession, and muse over the years as he writes to her of his friendship with the aspiring politician Abraham Lincoln, his encounter with the young newspaperman Samuel Clemens, and his crisis of conscience concerning the radical abolitionist John Brown.

"In the sixth stand-alone book in The American Novels series, Shelby Ross, a merchant ruined by the depression of 1873-79, is hired as a New York City Custom House appraiser under inspector Herman Melville, the embittered, forgotten author of Moby-Dick. On the docks, Ross befriends a genial young man and makes an enemy of a despicable one, who attempts to destroy them by insinuating that Ross and the young man share an unnatural affection. Ross narrates...

"In the seventh standalone title in the American Novels series, Ellen Finch recalls her time as an assistant to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, heroes of America's woman suffrage movement, and her friendship with the diminutive Margaret, one of P.T. Barnum's "eccentrics" in his circus. When Ellen's infant son is abducted by the Klan to punish her for serving the cause of women, Ellen, Margaret, and the two formidable, if elderly, suffragists...