An edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1994)

Harriet Beecher Stowe

a life

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Last edited by MARC Bot
July 24, 2024 | History
An edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1994)

Harriet Beecher Stowe

a life

  • 2 Want to read
  • 1 Have read

""Up to this year I have always felt that I had no particular call to meddle with this subject.... But I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak." Thus did Harriet Beecher Stowe announce her decision to begin work on what would become one of the most influential novels ever written. The subject she had hesitated to "meddle with" was slavery, and the novel, of course, was Uncle Tom's Cabin. Still debated today for its portrayal of African Americans and its unresolved place in the literary canon, Stowe's best-known work was first published in weekly installments from June 5, 1851 to April 1, 1852. It caused such a stir in both the North and South, and even in Great Britain, that when Stowe met President Lincoln in 1862 he is said to have greeted her with the words, "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that created this great war!"" "In this landmark book, the first full-scale biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe in over fifty years, Joan D. Hedrick tells the absorbing story of this gifted, complex, and contradictory woman. Hedrick takes readers into the multi-layered world of nineteenth-century morals and mores, exploring the influence of then-popular ideas of "true womanhood" on Stowe's upbringing as a member of the outspoken Beecher clan, and her eventful life as a writer and shaper of public opinion who was also a mother of seven. It offers a lively record of the flourishing parlor societies that launched and sustained Stowe throughout the 44 years of her career, and the harsh physical realities that governed so many women's lives. The epidemics, high infant mortality, and often disastrous medical practices of the day are portrayed in moving detail, against the backdrop of western expansion, the great social upheaval accompanying the abolitionist movement, and the entry of women into public life." "Here are Stowe's public triumphs, both before and after the Civil War, and the private tragedies that included the death of her beloved eighteen month old son, the drowning of another son, and the alcohol and morphine addictions of two of her other children. The daughter, sister, and wife of prominent ministers; Stowe channeled her anguish and her ambition into a socially acceptable anger on behalf of others, transforming her private experience into powerful narratives that moved a nation." "Magisterial in its breadth and rich in detail, this definitive portrait explores the full measure of Harriet Beecher Stowe's life and her contribution to American literature. Perceptive and engaging, it illuminates the career of a major writer during the transition of literature from an amateur pastime to a profession, and offers a fascinating look at the pains, pleasures, and accomplishments of women's lives in the last century."--BOOK JACKET.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
507

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe: life
1995, Oxford University Press
in English - New ed.
Cover of: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life
April 4, 1995, Oxford University Press, USA
in English
Cover of: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe: a life
1994, Oxford University Press
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. 474-487) and index.

Published in
New York

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
813/.3, B
Library of Congress
PS2956 .H43 1994, PS2956.H43 1994, PS2956 .H43 1993

The Physical Object

Pagination
xviii, 507 p. :
Number of pages
507

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL1408083M
Internet Archive
harrietbeecherst00hedr
ISBN 10
0195066391
LCCN
93016610
OCLC/WorldCat
27684144
Library Thing
234702
Goodreads
123985

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History

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July 24, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
January 8, 2021 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
July 31, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
February 14, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot remove fake subjects
December 10, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page