"Passion-flowers as a book grew from Howe's distraction following Horace Binney Wallace's suicide. Its seeds, though, are to be found in the ten years of of pain and growth preceeding its December 1853 publication. Its intensity and audacity, as well as its emotional and technical range, I have come to believe, qualify it for regard as one of the benchmarks of antebellum literary achievement. It is Howe's declaration of emotional independence and - despite her disclaimer in the opening poem - it is an instrument of revenge.

Quoted from "Hungry Heart: The Literary Emergence of Julia Ward Howe," Gary Williams.(Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1999).