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
Results 1-5 of 79
Page 5
... later, “the idea that I might be called to teach the best mode of preaching to the young ministry of the broad West flashed through my mind like lightning. I went home, and ran in, and found Esther alone in the sitting-room.” Esther was ...
... later, “the idea that I might be called to teach the best mode of preaching to the young ministry of the broad West flashed through my mind like lightning. I went home, and ran in, and found Esther alone in the sitting-room.” Esther was ...
Page 7
... later, “but it was through much tribulation.” They had traveled the second leg of the journey by water. New York truckmen delivered the family baggage to the wrong wharf, however, “and, after waiting and waiting on board the boat, we ...
... later, “but it was through much tribulation.” They had traveled the second leg of the journey by water. New York truckmen delivered the family baggage to the wrong wharf, however, “and, after waiting and waiting on board the boat, we ...
Page 9
... later that theirs had been a glorious life out there while it lasted, although what Harriet set down soon after the arrival sounds often more beclouded. For at the time, she wrote back east of feeling depressed in these new surroundings ...
... later that theirs had been a glorious life out there while it lasted, although what Harriet set down soon after the arrival sounds often more beclouded. For at the time, she wrote back east of feeling depressed in these new surroundings ...
Page 11
... later radiant recollections—of Cincinnati, say—and the drabber feelings that she recorded at the time. She would remember a childhood, for instance, spent in “a great household inspired by a spirit of cheerfulness and hilarity.” And has ...
... later radiant recollections—of Cincinnati, say—and the drabber feelings that she recorded at the time. She would remember a childhood, for instance, spent in “a great household inspired by a spirit of cheerfulness and hilarity.” And has ...
Page 25
... later, and a gray fur cap like a lady's muff. The Indian man was dressed in a shabby overcoat and a black, close-fitting hat. “They took no notice of me, but were rather ill-natured towards each other, and seemed to be disputing for the ...
... later, and a gray fur cap like a lady's muff. The Indian man was dressed in a shabby overcoat and a black, close-fitting hat. “They took no notice of me, but were rather ill-natured towards each other, and seemed to be disputing for the ...
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