Two centuries before “women’s lib,” in the run-up to America’s Revolutionary War, Mercy Otis Warren was already a liberated woman by the standards of her day. And she did the liberating herself.

In the latter half of the 18th century, Warren was an accomplished poet, playwright, pamphleteer, and historian — though much of what she wrote was anonymous, in part to get a hearing where a woman might not otherwise be listened to. She also risked reprisal from King George III and the British troops with her subversive rhetoric in favor of American liberty and independence.

She was a close friend and confidant to almost all the major figures of the revolution: the Adamses (Samuel as well as John and Abigail), the Washingtons (both George and Martha), Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Patrick Henry, among others. Many of the plans and activities of the Sons of Liberty and, later, the…