| The Minister's Wooing Contributor(s): Stowe, Harriet Beecher (Author), Harris, Susan K. (Introduction by) |
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ISBN: 0140437029 ISBN-13: 9780140437027 Publisher: Penguin Group OUR PRICE: $15.30 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 1999 Annotation: First published in 1859, and set in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, The Minister's Wooing is a historical novel and domestic comedy that satirizes Calvinism, celebrating its intellectual and moral integrity while critiquing its rigid theology. Mary Scudder lives with her widowed mother in a modest middle-class home. Dr. Hopkins, a Calvinist minister who boards with them, is dedicated to helping the slaves arriving at Newport and calls for the abolition of slavery. The pious Mary admires him but is also in love with the passionate but skeptical James Marvyn who, hungry for adventure, joins the crew of a ship setting sail for exotic destinations. When James is presumed lost at sea, Mary fears for his soul, and consents to marry the good Doctor. With important insights on slavery, history, and gender, as well as characters based on historical figures, The Minister's Wooing is, as Susan Harris notes in her Introduction, "an historical novel, like Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter or Catharine Sedgwick's Hope Leslie or A New England Tale; it is an attempt through fiction to create a moral, intellectual, and affective history for New England." |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Classics - Fiction | Romance - Historical - General |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 99019095 |
| Series: Penguin Classics |
| Physical Information: 0.7" H x 5" W x 7.7" (0.60 lbs) 384 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Cultural Region - New England - Cultural Region - Northeast U.S. - Geographic Orientation - Rhode Island |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: From the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a domestic comedy that examines slavery, Protestant theology, and gender differences in early America. First published in 1859, Harriet Beecher Stowe's third novel is set in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, a community known for its engagement in both religious piety and the slave trade. Mary Scudder lives in a modest farmhouse with her widowed mother an their boarder, Samuel Hopkins, a famous Calvinist theologian who preaches against slavery. Mary is in love with the passionate James Marvyn, but Mary is devout and James is a skeptic, and Mary's mother opposes the union. James goes to sea, and when he is reportedly drowned, Mary is persuaded to become engaged to Dr. Hopkins. With colorful characters, including many based on real figures, and a plot that hinges on romance, The Minister's Wooing combines comedy with regional history to show the convergence of daily life, slavery, and religion in post-Revolutionary New England. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. |