Books: Days of Old

THIS WAS MY NEWPORT—Maud Howe Elliott—The Mythology Co. ($4).

Her mother was Julia Ward Howe, who wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic in a moment of inspiration in 1861 and died in 1910, at 91, without ever having been able to live down or live up to that solitary performance. Her father was Samuel Gridley Howe, a romantic figure, a friend of Lafayette, a soldier in the wars for Greek and Polish independence. In This Was My Newport, Daughter Maud Howe Elliott, now 90, tells what it was like to be the...