About this item
In the shadow of the Civil War, a circle of radicals in a rowdy saloon changed American society and helped set Walt Whitman on the path to poetic immortality.Rebel Souls is the first book ever written about the colorful group of artists— regulars at Pfaff’s Saloon in Manhattan—rightly considered America’s original Bohemians. Besides a young Whitman, the circle included actor Edwin Booth; trailblazing stand–up comic Artemus Ward; psychedelic drug pioneer and author Fitz Hugh Ludlow; and brazen performer Adah Menken, famous for her Naked Lady routine. Central to their times, the artists managed to forge connections with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, and even Abraham Lincoln. This vibrant tale, packed with original research, offers the pleasures of a great group biography like The Banquet Years or The Metaphysical Club.
About the Author
Justin Martin is currently at work on A Fierce Glory, to be published in September 2018 (Da Capo Press) . This will be a group biography treatment of Antietam, the Civil War's pivotal battle, still America's single bloodiest day. The rich cast includes: Robert E. Lee, pioneering war photographer Alexander Gardner, and Jonathan Letterman, the father of battlefield medicine. Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation will also be woven into this account far more than in a typical military history of Antietam.
Martin's specialty is American history, meticulously researched, but delivered in a narrative style that's akin to fiction. His most recent book is Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians (Da Capo, 2014) about a decadent and incredibly influential artists' circle that hung out at Pfaff's saloon in NYC during the 1850s. Among its members: a young Walt Whitman; Artemus Ward, America's first standup comic; psychedelic drug pioneer Fitz Hugh Ludlow; and Adah Isaacs Menken, an actress notorious for her "Naked Lady" act.
Earlier efforts includes biographies of pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, and Ralph Nader, the noted consumer advocate. Martin's articles have appeared in a variety of publications including the New York Times, Newsweek, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Martin is a 1987 graduate of Rice University in Houston, Texas. He lives with his wife and twin sons in Forest Hills Gardens, New York, a landmark neighborhood designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. In his spare time, Martin runs marathons (he's completed seven) and gardens (he's grown some great tomatoes, but his experiments in urban corn-growing have so far failed) .
