John T. Matteson has an A.B. in history from Princeton University and a Ph.D. English from Columbia University. He also holds a J.D. from Harvard and has practiced as a litigation attorney in California
and North Carolina. His work has appeared in
The Wall Street Journal;
The New York Times;
The Harvard Theological Review;
New England Quarterly;
Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies; and other publications.
His 2007 book,
Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
Matteson's new book is
The Lives of Margaret Fuller: A Biography.
One of his
five best portraits of pioneering women, as told to the
Wall Street Journal:
First Lady of Letters
by Sheila L. Skemp (2009)
Born the same year as James Madison, Judith Sargent Murray shared her great contemporary's fascination with the laws of nature and the rights of human beings. But 
Murray undertook her inquiries with a different objective in mind. She began with a seemingly simple question: Was it true that "one half of the human species is endowed with unquestionable superiority over the other?" When she posed this question in 1779, most of her fellow Americans would have answered yes. Murray, however, spent decades arguing that women were the intellectual equals of men. Sheila L. Skemp's "First Lady of Letters" is an admirable history of this all but forgotten Federalist-era women's rights advocate, who argued powerfully that girls could shine as brightly as boys if only they were given the benefits of a classical education and parents who encouraged them to "reverence themselves."
Read about
another book on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
and North Carolina. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal; The New York Times; The Harvard Theological Review; New England Quarterly; Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies; and other publications.
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