Fall River: An Authentic Narrative - Couverture souple

Williams, Catharine

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0195083598 ISBN 13 : 9780195083590

Editeur : Oxford University Press, 1997

Synopsis

One of the earliest documentary novels, Fall River recounts the famous murder of a mill girl and the subsequent trial of a popular minister of the period. Compellingly written, it is not only a record of a sensational story of its times, but also a revealing embodiment of the social and cultural climate of early nineteenth century industrial America. The book is also an important landmark in the history of religion in American popular culture, with detailed descriptions of religious camp meetings in New England. Williams was urged by her readers to compose her account of these events, in order to correct what she called the "indecent manner" in which they had hitherto been reported. (David Kasserman's recent widely acclaimed sociological study Fall River Outrage is based on the events Williams describes.)
This unprecedented new series reintroduces women's writings of cultural and literary interest, from the Medieval period through the early nineteenth century, often for the first time since their original publication. Derived from the Brown University Women Writers Project, the series unearths a wide range of neglected gems, dispelling the myth that women wrote little of real value before the Victorian period. Each volume includes an introduction putting the work in its historical and literary context and helpful explanatory notes.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

Reviews from the cloth edition: "The story of Hester Prynne, had she worked in a factory. It pivotally locates women's sexuality amid industrialization, familial dispersion, religious fervor, and the American juridical system."--Russ Castronovo, University of Miami

Praise for the series: "Publishing these previously unknown or ignored volumes by women will revolutionize the canon of English and American literature taught in graduate and undergraduate courses. The list of texts is impressive. It includes some of the most important scholarship now under way in the field of Renaissance literature."--Margaret Hannay, Siena College

"Making these writers available in an easily accessible form contributes significantly not only to feminist scholarship, which has been seeking to recover the works of such writers for two decades, but also to teaching and scholarship more generally within the humanities, from the freshman level to the most specialized postgraduate level."--Marlon Ross, University of Michigan

"The texts chosen form an extremely interesting and quite varied group, and the prospect of having them in book form is exciting. Scholars and students will be much richer for it."--Carolyn Dinshaw, University of California, Berkeley

Présentation de l'éditeur

Catharine Williams (1787-1872) lived most of her life in Rhode Island, where she supported herself and her daughter by a productive literary career. Her most compelling work, Fall River, last published in 1833, recreates a notorious incident in the ill-fated town of Fall River, Massachusetts: the trial of a Methodist minister for the murder of a pregnant mill worker whom it was suspected he had seduced. Williams's investigative report offers a vivid contemporary view of the lives of poor "factory girls" and of clerical corruption in the industrial towns of early New England. While based in fact, the book raises themes of sexual and religious hypocrisy and exploitation that may be compared with those of novels like The Coquette, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Scarlet Letter. At the same time, the author's mixture of journalism, biography, fiction, and exhortation makes this "authentic narrative" an unusual challenge to traditional notions of literary form and yields fresh insights into the nature of early American women's writing.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press
• Date d'édition: 1997
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0195083598
• ISBN 13: 9780195083590
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 198
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italie