New Books In Biography

The portrait is startling. Painted by John Singer Sargent, “Mr. and Mrs. I.N. Phelps Stokes” depicts a woman dressed casually, almost masculinely, save a voluminous white skirt. Her hand is held brazenly at her hip as her presence nearly obscures that of her husband, who hovers in the background like a specter. They are Edith and Newton Stokes. As biographer Jean Zimmerman details in her excellent duel biography of the couple, entitled Love, Fiercely: A Gilded Age Romance (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). “Both were progressives, and both believed in doing great deeds, whether it was reforming tenements in Newton’s case or getting the vote for women in Edith’s. They fell in love when they were children, a love that lasted until they were parted by death.” Edith eventually became President of the New York Kindergarten Association and of the Municipal Art Commission. Newton spent over a decade laboring on a six-volume history of the city entitled the Iconography of Manhattan. They were a couple defined by t