It was an age of change. The last sailing ships were crossing the Atlantic, replaced by steamships. The last limners (itinerant artists) were being replaced by photographers. Puritinism was being replaced by Spiritism and Transcendentalism. Soon slavery would end, not by uniting "black chattel slaves" and factory "wage slaves" into a workers' union as the Abolitionists intended, but in a brutal war. Many of the first self-styled "bohemians" you'll meet are famous (Walt Whitman, Edwin Booth, Mathew Brady) and the Abolitionists still are household names like Harriet Tubman, John Brown, and Henry David Thoreau. Fictional Lillian manages to pull bohemian artist and protagonist Wendell into her mysterious involvements with runaway slaves and despite some graphic sex and war scenes, this is ultimately a deeply spiritual book.