The Minister's Wooing
LC Class | PS2954.M5 S76 1999 |
The Minister's Wooing is a historical novel by
With its intense focus upon the history, customs, and mannerisms of New England, The Minister's Wooing is one sense an example of the local color writing that proliferated in late 19th century. However, because Stowe also highlighted the issue of slavery, this time in the North, this novel is related to her earlier anti-slavery novels.[4] Finally, the work serves as a critique of Calvinism, written from the perspective of an individual deeply familiar with the theological system.
Stowe's father was well-known Calvinist minister
Publication history
The Minister's Wooing was first
The novel was the subject of a 1909
Genesis of the novel
In 1857, Harriet Stowe's son Henry drowned in the Connecticut River. Like the sailor James in the novel, he was unregenerate at the time of his death. Stowe had first begun to reassess the Calvinist view of salvation after watching her sister Catherine wrestle in 1822 with the similar loss of an unregenerate fiancé. Henry's death spurred further reflection. The grief and doubt which both Harriet and her sister had dealt with inspired the novel. Their experiences are expressed in the character of Mrs. Marvyn.[10]
Some readers, including Stowe's grandson
Synopsis
The story is set in Newport, Rhode Island, when it was still a prosperous fishing and shipping town and not a fashionable retreat for the rich. Dr. Hopkins is a 40-year-old minister. Mary is the daughter of his hostess in town, and Hopkins soon falls in love with Mary. She, however, is still in love with James Marvyn, a sailor presumed lost at sea.
Mary is very religious and, after a period of mourning, she decides to marry Dr. Hopkins. Mary has other suitors, including
Major characters
Minister Samuel Hopkins
He is an apostle of
Mary Scudder
This fictional character is partly based on the author's older sister, Catharine Beecher. Mary loved a sailor who has been lost in a shipwreck and is presumed dead. She is a typical Stowe heroine, resigned to her sorrow and bearing her grief as atonement for her sins and those of her lost seaman.
James Marvyn
Mary's lost sailor. Both Mary and his mother agonize over his fate and his salvation. He was not a Christian and therefore, according to traditional Calvinist theology, irrevocably damned. He eventually returns to Mary. Having survived the shipwreck, his virtue is shown by his having become a Christian and achieved wealth.
Mrs. Marvyn
James's mother. She is angry with a God who seemed to have destined the death of her unsaved son. Her despair is lifted with the help of Mary and Candace, a
Minor characters
Candace
Mary Scudder's free black servant. Candace's displays of integrity and love toward Mrs. Marvyn speak very highly of her character. Mary treats Candace more as a friend and confidant than a servant.
Virginie de Frontenac
She is the wife of a French diplomat and she falls in love with
Aaron Burr
Based on the real-life Vice President of the United States,
Miss Prissy Diamond
The town dressmaker and busy body. Although James returns to town, Mary believes she has an obligation to marry Minister Hopkins. Miss Prissy tells the minister about Mary's true love. Hopkins calls off the wedding, so that Mary and James are free to marry.
External links
- Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1867), The Minister's Wooing (Google Books) (full text).
- "Mrs. Stowe's New Novel; An English Review of "The Minister's Wooing"". The New York Times. Nov 12, 1859. Retrieved 30 March 2011. An early review of the book.
- The Minister's Wooing public domain audiobook at LibriVox
Footnotes
- ^ Harris 1999b, p. viii.
- ^ Harris 1999.
- ^ Harris 1999b, pp. viii–xi.
- ^ Harris 1999b, p. xii.
- ^ Harris 1999, p. ix.
- ^ Harris 1999b, p. xi.
- ^ Harris 1999, p. xi.
- ^ Bell 1995, pp. 107–8.
- ^ "Mifflin v. Dutton, 190 U.S. 265 (1903)". Justia. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
- ^ Harris 1999b, p. vii.
- ^ Stowe, Harriet (1896). The Minister's Wooing. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. pp. 243–48.
- ^ Foster, Charles Howell (1949), "The Genesis of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 'The Minister's Wooing'", The New England Quarterly: 495–517.
- ^ Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1999), The Minister's Wooing, Penguin Books.
- ^ Gerson 1976, p. 130.
- ^ Gerson 1976, p. 131.
References and further reading
- Adams, John R (1963), Harriet Beecher Stowe, New York: Twayne.
- Bell, Michael Davitt (1995), "Women's Fiction and the Literary Marketplace in the 1850s", in Bercovitch, Sacvan; Patell, Cyrus RK (eds.), The Cambridge History of American Literature, vol. 2, Cambridge, England; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 74–123, ISBN 0-521-30106-8.
- Gerson, Noel (1976), Harriet Beecher Stowe, Praeger.
- Harris, Susan K (1993), "The Female Imaginary in Harriet Beecher Stowe's the Minister's Wooing", New England Quarterly, 66 (2): 179–98, JSTOR 365843.
- ——— (1999), "Harriet (Elizabeth) Beecher Stowe", Discovering Authors (3.0 ed.), Gale.
- ——— (1999b), "Introduction", in Stowe, Harriet Beecher (ed.), The Minister's Wooing, New York: Penguin, pp. vii–xxiii, ISBN 0-14-043702-9.
- Jackson, Phyllis Wynn (1947), Victorian Cinderella: The Story of Harriet Beecher Stowe, New York: H. Wolff.
- Ramirez, Anne West (Spring 2002), "Harriet Beecher Stowe's Christian Feminism in the Minister's Wooing: A Precedent for Emily Dickinson", Christianity and Literature, 51 (3): 407–24, .
- Stowe, Harriet (1896), The Minister's Wooing, Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.