Meet Ettie Stettheimer’s alter ego: Susanna Moore, a ravishing Greek scholar. Susanna has no trouble deciphering arcane texts, but when it comes to matters of the heart, she’s lost in translation. Her desire for love, knowledge and the company of great artists carries her from New York and Berlin to Capri and Paris, but she can only run from herself for so long. Together with her sisters Florine and Carrie, Ettie hobnobbed with all the big names of the avant-garde scene at the turn of the century—see if you can spot the characters she modeled after Elie Nadelman, Robert Delaunay . . . .go to book page >>

Avis Dobell is a talented young painter on the rise, working to establish herself, when she meets professor Philip Ostrander. Though she has sworn to never marry and at first rejects her suitor, she relents after he returns wounded from the Civil War. Ultimately, Avis fills her days with thoughts of doilies and daycare instead of paints and palettes. Following Avis’ struggles to balance her passion with her duties, Phelps’ novel proves that artistic ambition is not extinguished by love, but slowly eroded by the constraints of 19th-century womanhood.
Feminist and social reformer Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844–1911) authored 57 books. . . . .go to book page >>