The Bohemian and the Abolitionist

Greenwich Village, 1859: Artist Wendell Harte Parry is about the discover that freedom means more than "free love," and love is anything but free. The Bohemian and the Abolitionist begins in 1859 as John Brown is preparing his raid on Harper’s Ferry, and ends in 1863 with the New York City Draft Riots. Fictional protagonist Wendell, a Greenwich Village artist, tries to protect his mysterious lover, Lillian, as she steals her husband's art collection to support John Brown's mad scheme to free the slaves. When things go awry and her husband returns from Europe, Wendell must not only face the Civil War, but a war of his own making. The historical characters include habitues of Greenwich Village: Artists of the Hudson River School, poet Walt Whitman, photographer Mathew Brady, "King and Queen of the Bohemians" Henry Clapp and Ada Clare, author Fitzhugh Ludlow (The Hasheesh Eater), actors Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, actresses Adah Isaacs Menken and Laura Keene, The abolitionists include Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Louisa May Alcott, and members of the "Secret Six." The Afro-American Rosecrucian and "Sex Magician," Dr. Paschal Beverly Randolph, is in a category all his own.