Dear George, Dear Mary: A Novel of George Washington's First Love

by Mary Calvi Narrated by Marisa Calin, Raphael Corkhill

Overview

An audiobook about heiress Mary Philipse's relationship with George Washington, based on historical accounts, letters, and personal journals by nine-time New York Emmy Award-winning journalist Mary Calvi.

“Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is, therefore, contended that it cannot be resisted.” -George Washington

Did unrequited love spark a flame that ignited a cause that became the American Revolution? Never before has this story about George Washington been told. Crafted from hundreds of letters, witness accounts, and journal entries, Dear George, Dear Mary explores George's relationship with his first love, New York heiress Mary Philipse, the richest belle in Colonial America.

From elegant eighteenth-century society to bloody battlefields, the novel creates breathtaking scenes and riveting characters. Dramatic portraits of the two main characters unveil a Washington on the precipice of greatness, using the very words he spoke and wrote, and his ravishing love, whose outward beauty and refinement disguise a complex inner struggle.

Dear George, Dear Mary reveals why George Washington had such bitter resentment toward the Brits, established nearly two decades before the American Revolution, and it unveils details of a deception long hidden from the world that led Mary Philipse to be named a traitor, condemned to death and left with nothing. While that may sound like the end, ultimately both Mary and George achieve what they always wanted.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

12/03/2018
Calvi’s debut skillfully depicts the ill-fated love story of a promising 24-year-old colonel named George Washington and Mary Eliza Philipse, a melancholy New York heiress. Even before meeting him at a ball in 1756, Mary already idolizes George, having read his journal in the newspapers. Mary believes herself cursed after losing, over time, her younger sister, father, and mother, and she fears that this curse will sully her happiness with George, with whom she makes an instant connection. Together they begin their courtship. George is assigned to lead the construction of a fort in Virginia, and during the 19 months he’s separated from Mary, he’s slandered in the press for “vice and debauchery,” denied leave by his superiors, and given inadequate means to defend his post. He’s written to Mary but hasn’t heard back from her; Mary, meanwhile, rejects endless suitors while wondering why George hasn’t written or visited. While Calvi’s writing is flowery and rife with exposition (she’s particularly clunky at interjecting excerpts from source material into George’s thoughts), her narrative is affecting. Some 20 years pass before George and Mary reunite during the Revolutionary War and Mary discovers the truth about what kept them apart. The bittersweet ending is a fitting conclusion to a story that will appeal to readers of romance and historical fiction. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

AudioFile Magazine Earphones Award winner

APRIL 2019 - AudioFile

Audiobook listeners can travel back to the eighteenth century and hear a youthful George Washington recount British military blunders. Later, they hear a romantic Washington’s frustration over being kept apart from his first love, Mary Eliza Philpse, the belle of Yonkers. Narrator Raphael Corkhill captures the essence of Washington—his sense of honor, his dignity, his intelligence, and his commitment to his ideals and to the young lady sequestered in her mansion in New York. Corkhill's accent is slightly British, his voice clear and pleasing. Mary's narrative is performed by Marisa Calin, who uses a high-pitched girlish voice for the naïve Mary. The dialogue is flowery, even stilted at times, but the narrators make the characters wholly believable. D.L.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169847864
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	02/19/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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