The Minister's Wooing

by Stowe, Harriet Beecher

• ISBN13: 9780140437027
• ISBN10: 0140437029
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-08-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

With colorful characters, including many based on real figures, and a plot that hinges on romance, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin combines domestic comedy and regional history to examine slavery, Protestant theology, and gender differences in early America.

Author Biography

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, daughter of the Reverend Lyman Beecher of the local Congregational Church. In 1832, the family moved to Cincinnati, where Harriet married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor at the seminary, in 1836. The border town of Cincinnati was alive with abolitionist conflict and there Mrs. Stowe took an active part in community life. She came into contact with fugitive slaves, and learned from friends and from personal visits what life was like for the Negro in the South. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, and that same year Harriet’s sister-in-law urged the author to put her feelings about the evils of slavery into words. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published serially during 1851-52 in The National Era, and in book form in 1852. In one year more than 300,000 copies of the novel were sold. Mrs. Stowe continued to write, publishing eleven other novels and numerous articles before her death at the age of eighty-five in Hartford, Connecticut.

Susan K. Harris is Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature at the University of Kansas.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Susan K. Harris
Suggestions for Further Reading	xxv
A Note on the Text	xxix
The Minister's Wooing
Pre-Railroad Times	3	(8)
The Kitchen	11	(8)
The Interview	19	(8)
Theological Tea	27	(15)
The Letter	42	(10)
The Doctor	52	(8)
The Friends and Relations of James	60	(10)
Which Treats of Romance	70	(10)
Which Treats of Things Seen	80	(9)
The Test of Theology	89	(10)
The Practical Test	99	(8)
Miss Prissy	107	(15)
The Party	122	(4)
Aaron Burr	126	(13)
The Sermon	139	(6)
The Garret-Boudoir	145	(16)
Polemics in the Kitchen	161	(6)
Evidences	167	(6)
Madame de Frontignac	173	(8)
Tidings from Over Sea	181	(6)
The Bruised Flax-Flower	187	(2)
The House of Mourning	189	(4)
Views of Divine Government	193	(11)
Mysteries	204	(13)
A Guest at the Cottage	217	(15)
The Declaration	232	(5)
Surprises	237	(8)
The Betrothed	245	(5)
Bustle in the Parish	250	(6)
The Quilting	256	(11)
An Adventure	267	(6)
Plain Talk	273	(6)
New England in French Eyes	279	(4)
Consultations and Confidences	283	(8)
Old Love and New Duty	291	(6)
Jacob's Vow	297	(4)
The Question of Duty	301	(8)
The Transfigured	309	(3)
The Ice Broken	312	(5)
The Sacrifice	317	(4)
The Wedding	321	(5)
Last Words	326	(7)
Explanatory Notes	333
Susan K. Harris
Danielle Conger