Like most great men, Beecher was flawed — as a pastor he hated visiting the sick and the shut-ins. Instead, he gravitated toward women and anyone who was literary or lively in mind. He was hooked on books and had to resort to chicanery to get new books into the house without explaining them to his wife.

Part of his problems lay in the fact that he married too early, and he married the wrong woman. He and Eunice had virtually nothing in common, and he certainly could not talk with her about intellectual matters. She even seemed unaware that he had strayed.

With this impressive volume, Applegate, a first-rate narrative historian, takes her place beside David McCullough and Joseph Ellis in her ability to make history interesting. She truly writes for the general reader, even though her research, as demonstrated by her bibliography, was massive.

She also shows genuine appreciation for her subject, but she does it without compromising her objectivity as a historian.

Beecher, who deserved this excellent treatment, jumps off these pages fully realized because Applegate writes so beautifully.

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E-mail: dennis@desnews.com