As the story begins, Margaret Fuller is a young woman in her late twenties on the brink of a career as an author and editor. She’s an attractive woman who might easily have slipped into the conventional role of wife and mother, but she rejects these. Having received an intensive education from her father, Magaret is more learned than any man she knows, and she plans to use her mind and pen to improve the lot of women in the world. She teaches school, edits journals and newspapers, and writes books that gain her notoriety as a great intellect.

Despite these achievements, Margaret lives at a time when society discourages intellectual achievement in females. Because she’s a spinster, those who perceive a woman’s only role to be as a wife and mother regard her as relatively useless. While Margaret refuses to settle for this narrow fate, however, she longs for a family of her own. Her dearest wish is granted when she marries and has a son. Unfortunately, she and her family become swept up in the Italian struggle for independence. While fleeing the war in Rome, Margaret, her husband, and her son drown right off the coast of New York.