His first, Catherine "Kitty" Garniss‑a warm, outgoing, attractive young woman whom he loved passionately‑died in 1835 from complications of childbirth after eighteen months of marriage. She was only twenty-three. Her death was "so overwhelming, so unexpected," he told his friend Cleveland, that he could barely function. "I wish you could have known her," he wrote. "She was universally beloved by her acquaintances….She was gifted with unusual intellectual power…And now I feel