The Belle of Bowling Green

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. In historic Bowling Green, this richly textured novel opens with a vivid portrait of old New York, where respected Dutch families shape the city's social and civic life even as war with England looms. At the center stands the Bloommaert household, presided over by Judge Gerardus Bloommaert and his graceful daughter Sapphira, whose beauty and calm draw every eye. When news of war breaks, the household erupts in patriotic feeling, and the city answers with flags, speeches, cheers, and songs, as young men prepare to defend New York and the nation. Against this public upheaval, the novel follows a web of family loyalties, generational contrasts, and private ambitions. Madame Bloommaert's steadfast memory of past hardship contrasts with Annette's restless vanity and longing for excitement, while Christopher's quiet resolve and Leonard Murray's return deepen the sense of lives altered by duty. The story also turns darkly toward Aaron Burr and the Elma Sands murder trial, as Madame recounts Catherine Ring's fearless denunciation and the ominous judgments that seem to foretell Burr's later ruin. Amid war, scandal, and memory, love finally asserts itself when Achille proposes to Annette, binding personal fate to the larger drama of the city.