Justin Martin

ustin Martin is the author of several biographies, but his fifth book, Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians, is his first literary and group biography. It explores a critical four-year period in the life of Walt Whitman and his artistic associates before the Civil War. Citing a lifelong curiosity to understand the real people he writes about and not the mythical figures they become over time, Martin’s book also explores the bohemian lifestyle in 1850s New York City, along with some of the well-known artists who frequented Pfaff’s Saloon and their influence on the artistic culture of the time.