The Minister's Wooing
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| 1999 Penguin edition cover | |
| Author | Harriet Beecher Stowe |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical novel |
| Publisher | Derby and Jackson (first edition), Penguin Books (1999 edition) |
| Released | 1859 (first book publication) |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) or Serial |
| Pages | 578 pp (first edition); 349 pp (Penguin paperback, 1999) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-14-043702-9 (Penguin paperback) |
The Minister's Wooing is a historical novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Set in eighteenth-century New England, the novel satirizes the Calvinism Stowe had grown up with. While it is often compared to Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850), The Minster's Wooing takes a different look at the regional history of New England and connects with Stowe's earlier anti-slavery novels in that it highlights the issue of slavery, this time in the north. In contrast to Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter, The Minister's Wooing is a "sentimental romance";[1] its central plot revolves around getting married. Stowe was intimately familiar with the historical issues in the novel and many aspects are based on her own and her older sister Catherine's life.[2] In particular, responding to the untimely death of two of her children, Stowe addresses the issue of predestination,[3] the idea that individuals were either "saved" or "damned," and only the elect would go to heaven. In this novel, Stowe exposes the contradictions inherent in Calvinism, the religion of her father, the well-known minister Lyman Beecher. Indeed, Stowe herself later attended Episcopalian services.[4] The Minister's Wooing was first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly from December 1858 to December 1859, and then published in book form first in England by Derby and Johnson, and then in the U.S, to guarantee British royalties.[5]
Catherine, Harriet Beecher Stowe's sister, had contributed to a period of mental instability for Stowe by being a very strict caretaker.[6] In fact, Stowe's first work, a geography textbook, was published as if written by "Catherine E. Beecher" without Harriet getting any credit[7] .
[edit] External links
- The Atlantic Monthly (1857-1901), contains the full text of the first, serialized publication of The Minister's Wooing (Dec. 1858-Dec. 1859).
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ cf. "Harriet (Elizabeth) Beecher Stowe," 1999.
- ^ Harris, 1999: ix.
- ^ Harris, 1999: xi.
- ^ Harris, 1999: xx.
- ^ Bell, 1995: 107-108
- ^ Adams, 1963: 21.
- ^ Jackson, 1947: 156–158.
[edit] References and further reading
- “Harriet (Elizabeth) Beecher Stowe.” Discovering Authors 3.0. Gale Group, 1999
- Adams, John R. Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1963.
- Bell, Michael Davitt. "Women's Fiction and the Literary Marketplace in the 1850s." The Cambridge History of American Literature. Eds. Sacvan Bercovitch and Cyrus R. K. Patell. Vol. 2. Cambridge England; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 74-123. ISBN 0-521-30106-8
- Harris, Susan K. "The Female Imaginary in Harriet Beecher Stowe's the Minister's Wooing." New England Quarterly 66.2 (1993): 179-98.
- Harris, Susan K. Introduction. The Minister's Wooing. Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Penguin Books 1999. vii-xxiii. ISBN 0-14-043702-9
- Jackson, Phyllis Wynn. Victorian Cinderella: The Story of Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: H. Wolff Book Manufacturing Company, 1947.
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