Loves of Harriet Beecher StoweThe author of Hawthorne in Concord “brings [Stowe] to life in all her glory, in a book at once so dramatic and so subtle that it rivals the best fiction” (Debby Applegate, author of The Most Famous Man in America). Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin forced an ambivalent North to confront the atrocities of slavery, yet it was just one of many accomplishments of the Beechers, the most eminent American family of the nineteenth century. Historian Philip McFarland follows the Beecher clan to the boomtown of Cincinnati, where Harriet’s glimpses of slavery across the Kentucky border moved her to pen Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We meet Harriet’s loves: her father Lyman, her husband Calvin, and her brother Henry, the most famous preacher of his time. As McFarland leads us through Harriet’s ever-changing world, he traces the arc of her literary career from her hard-scrabble beginnings to her ascendancy as the most renowned author of her day. Through the portrait of a defining American family, Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe opens into an unforgettable rendering of mid-nineteenth century America in the midst of unprecedented social and demographic explosions. To this day, Uncle Tom’s Cabin reverberates as a crucial document in Western culture. “Often dismissed even by her admirers as a pious faculty wife who just happened to write the book of the century, Harriet Beecher Stowe emerges in Philip McFarland’s biography in all her complexity and genius.” —Charles Calhoun, author of Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life and The Gilded Age |
From inside the book
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Page 9
... hand to the right and to the left, and forming casual or incidental acquaintances with all who will be acquainted with me.” Shrinking into a corner, watching how others behave: by nature this seventh of the Beecher offspring was ...
... hand to the right and to the left, and forming casual or incidental acquaintances with all who will be acquainted with me.” Shrinking into a corner, watching how others behave: by nature this seventh of the Beecher offspring was ...
Page 21
... hands with joy, saying (I cannot tell how many times) O, how delightful.” Then, utterly exhausted, Eliza sank into a lethargic sleep, as for two hours the watchers at bedside prayed and read hymns and scriptures aloud over the victim ...
... hands with joy, saying (I cannot tell how many times) O, how delightful.” Then, utterly exhausted, Eliza sank into a lethargic sleep, as for two hours the watchers at bedside prayed and read hymns and scriptures aloud over the victim ...
Page 26
... withdrew, leaving Calvin alone with the clouds. Then, “on turning my eyes towards the left-hand wall of the room, I thought I saw at an immense distance below me V3612p01.pmd 2/16/07, 3:22 PM 26. loves. of. harriet. beecher. stowe. • 26.
... withdrew, leaving Calvin alone with the clouds. Then, “on turning my eyes towards the left-hand wall of the room, I thought I saw at an immense distance below me V3612p01.pmd 2/16/07, 3:22 PM 26. loves. of. harriet. beecher. stowe. • 26.
Page 27
... hand, at only a little space from his bed, Calvin discovered several stout, welldressed devils with hairless, ash-colored faces wrestling with what he recognized as a Natick ne'er-do-well named Brown, a village fixture “unprincipled and ...
... hand, at only a little space from his bed, Calvin discovered several stout, welldressed devils with hairless, ash-colored faces wrestling with what he recognized as a Natick ne'er-do-well named Brown, a village fixture “unprincipled and ...
Page 36
... hand-to-mouth uncertainty, of scouring about for money and for students to augment whatever money could be found. Calvin's salary of $1,200 a year would soon be cut to $1,100—later it was cut more drastically still— and his father-in ...
... hand-to-mouth uncertainty, of scouring about for money and for students to augment whatever money could be found. Calvin's salary of $1,200 a year would soon be cut to $1,100—later it was cut more drastically still— and his father-in ...
Contents
3 | |
11 | |
23 | |
32 | |
43 | |
54 | |
63 | |
Uncle Toms Cabin | 74 |
Civil War | 157 |
Postbellum | 167 |
A Vindication | 177 |
Aftermath | 187 |
henry | 195 |
The Beechers | 197 |
Religion | 206 |
Brooklyn | 215 |
Reception | 83 |
Dark Places | 91 |
lyman | 99 |
To England | 101 |
Culture | 112 |
Looking Back | 121 |
Return to Europe | 131 |
Heartbreak | 140 |
The Ministers Wooing | 149 |
Changing America | 225 |
My Wife and I | 235 |
Scandal | 245 |
Inside the Home | 254 |
Trial | 263 |
Late Years | 274 |
notes | 293 |
works cited | 315 |
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Common terms and phrases
abolitionist American Andover appeared Autobiography of Lyman Boston Brooklyn brother Brunswick C. E. Stowe Calvin Stowe Calvinist Catharine Catharine Beecher century Charles Charley child Cincinnati congregation daughter dead dear death decade Dred earlier early east editor Edward England Essays family’s father feel felt Fred George Georgiana God’s Harriet Beecher Stowe Hartford Hatty heart Hedrick Henry Ward Beecher Henry’s husband Ibid Lady Byron Lady Byron Vindicated Lane Seminary Lane Theological Seminary later letter Litchfield living Lord Byron Lyman Beecher meanwhile minister Minister’s months mother never novel Ohio Plymouth Church poet poet’s Professor Stowe quoted readers Reverend sermons slave slavery South southern spirit story Stowe’s Theodore Tilton thing Tilton tion Uncle Tom’s Cabin Victoria Woodhull Walnut Hills wife wife’s woman women writing wrote York young