Galahad in the Gilded Age

Galahad in the Gilded Age is the story of George William Curtis, regarded at the beginning of his career as little more than a handsome, amusing young man from a socially prominent family. His life would change dramatically after four years traveling in Europe and the Levant, from which he returned to find himself a literary celebrity-"the Howadji"-following the appearance of two books describing his Middle East experiences that some considered so provocatively sensuous as to border on obscenity. Yet during this early celebrity, Curtis would find his life changing profoundly-discovering marital happiness, facing financial bankruptcy and finding himself irresistibly drawn into increasingly bitter controversies: the national battle against slavery, against wide-spreading political corruption, and against what Curtis regarded as a wholly unreasonable resistance to granting women the right to vote. George William Curtis, a contemporary would conclude after his death, was "the best knight of our time."