i Bestsellers in Nineteenth- Century America ii ANTHEM NINETEENTH-CENTURY SERIES The Anthem Nineteenth-Century Series incorporates a broad range of titles within the fields of literature and culture, comprising an excellent collection of interdisciplinary academic texts. The series aims to promote the most challenging and original work being undertaken in the field, and encourages an approach that fosters connections between areas including history, science, religion and literary theory. Our titles have earned an excellent reputation for the originality and rigour of their scholarship, and for our commitment to high- quality production. Series Editor Robert Douglas- Fairhurst – University of Oxford, UK Editorial Board Dinah Birch – University of Liverpool, UK Kirstie Blair – University of Stirling, UK Archie Burnett – Boston University, USA Christopher Decker – University of Nevada, USA Heather Glen – University of Cambridge, UK Linda K. Hughes – Texas Christian University, USA Simon J. James – Durham University, UK Angela Leighton – University of Cambridge, UK Jo McDonagh – King’s College London, UK Michael O’Neill – Durham University, UK Seamus Perry – University of Oxford, UK Clare Pettitt – King’s College London, UK Adrian Poole – University of Cambridge, UK Jan- Melissa Schramm – University of Cambridge, UK iii Bestsellers in Nineteenth-Century America An Anthology Edited by Paul C. Gutjahr iv Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com This edition first published in UK and USA 2016 by ANTHEM PRESS 75– 76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA © 2016 Paul C. Gutjahr editorial matter and selection The moral right of the authors has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 78308- 579- 8 (Hbk) ISBN- 10: 1- 78308- 579- 7 (Hbk) This title is also available as an e- book. v For Bob, Jim and David and Norman and Aletta ( in memoriam ) extended, and treasured, family. No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Aesop vi vii CONTENTS List of Figures xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv Thematic Connections xvii Chapter One Charlotte Temple, A Tale of Truth (1791), entire work 1 Susanna Haswell Rowson Chapter Two The Life of Washington; with Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honorable to Himself and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen (1800), selections 63 Mason Locke Weems Chapter I 65 Chapter II 67 Chapter III 73 Chapter XIII 76 Chapter Three American Tract Society, entire works (1825–Present) 85 Tract No. 92 The Forgiving African 86 Tract No. 175 To Mothers 88 Tract No. 512 Murderers of Fathers, and Murderers of Mothers 93 Tract No. 515 Novel- Reading 101 Chapter Four Awful Disclosures, by Maria Monk, of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal (1836), selections 105 Maria Monk Preface 107 Chapter I Early Recollections 108 Chapter II Congregational Nunnery 111 Chapter VI Taking the Veil 113 Chapter VIII Description of Apartments 118 Chapter XVII Treatment of Young Infants 124 Chapter XIX The Priests of the District 128 Chapter XX More Visits 131 BESTSELLERS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA viii viii Chapter Five The Illustrated Self- Instructor in Phrenology and Physiology (1840), selections 137 Orson Squire Fowler and Lorenzo Niles Fowler Section I Physiological Conditions as Affecting and Indicating Character 139 Section II Phrenological Conditions as Indicating Character 161 Chapter Six A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School (1841), selections 177 Catharine Esther Beecher Chapter I The Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women 178 Chapter XII On Domestic Manners 185 Chapter Seven The Quaker City: Or, The Monks of Monk Hall A Romance of Philadelphia Life, Mystery, and Crime (1845), selections 193 George Lippard Preface to This Edition 195 Book the First: The First Night 197 Chapter Eight Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie (1847), entire work 303 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Chapter Nine Reveries of a Bachelor: Or, A Book of the Heart (1850), selections 339 Donald Grant Mitchell (Ik Marvel) Preface 340 First Reverie: Smoke, Flame, and Ashes 342 Second Reverie: Sea Coal and Anthracite 354 Chapter Ten Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Or, Life Among the Lowly (1852), selections 373 Harriet Beecher Stowe Chapters I– IX 375 Chapter Eleven Ten Nights in a Bar- Room, and What I Saw There (1854), entire work 437 Timothy Shay Arthur Chapter Twelve Malaeska; The Indian Wife of the White Hunter (1860), entire work 537 Ann Sophia Winterbotham Stephens Chapter Thirteen Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Boot- Blacks (1868), entire work 613 Horatio Alger Jr. CONTENTS ix ix Chapter Fourteen Little Women, or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy (1868), selections 703 Louisa May Alcott Chapters I– IX 705 Chapter Fifteen The Gates Ajar (1868), entire work 767 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Chapter Sixteen The Luck of Roaring Camp (1868), entire work 853 John Jenkins, Or, the Smoker Reformed (1871), entire work 861 Bret Harte Chapter Seventeen Ben- Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), selections 865 Lew Wallace Book Second 867 Book Third 899 Book Fifth, selections 924 Book Eighth, selections 973 Chapter Eighteen The Hidden Hand: or, Capitola the Madcap (1888), selections 995 E. D. E. N. Southworth Chapters I–XXII 997 Chapter Nineteen In His Steps. “What Would Jesus Do” (1896), selections 1101 Charles Monroe Sheldon Chapters I– VI 1103 x xi LIST OF FIGURES Title page, Charlotte, A Tale of Truth 2 Portrait of George Washington, Frontispiece, The Life of Washington 64 Cover, “To Mothers,” Tract No. 175 88 Foldout map, front view of Hotel Dieu, from Awful Disclosures 106 Foldout map, interior view of Hotel Dieu, from Awful Disclosures 117 Symbolical head 138 Daniel Webster 143 Tristam Burgess 143 Hall 146 Alexander Campbell 147 Capt. Knight 147 Voltaire 148 Sidney Smith 149 Dempster 150 Phineas Stevens 150 Dr. Caldwell 151 William Cullen Bryant 152 Fanny Forrester 154 Washington 155 Grouping of organs 163 Human skull 163 Snake 163 Turtle 163 Tiger—side view 164 Hyena—side view 164 Hyena—back view 164 Bear—top view 164 Bear—back view 164 Sheep—top view 164 Rabbit—side view 164 Fox—side view 165 Ichneumon—side view 165 Ichneumon—back view 165 Cat—back view 165 Cat—side view 165 Lion—top view 165 BESTSELLERS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA xii xii Owl—top view 165 Hawk—top view 165 Hen—top view 165 Crow 166 Intelligent monkey 166 Intelligent monkey—side view 166 The orang- outang 166 African head 167 Indian chief 167 Bacon 167 Idiot 167 Washington Irving 170 A conceited simpleton 171 Jonathan Edwards 172 Emerson, an idiot 173 Title page, The Quaker City 194 Frontispiece, The Quaker City , 1876 edition 295 Frontispiece, Evangeline 304 Title page, Reveries of a Bachelor 340 Title page, Uncle Tom’s Cabin 374 Eliza’s escape, Uncle Tom’s Cabin 399 Title page, Ten Nights in a Bar- Room 438 “Come, Father!” Ten Nights in a Bar- Room 446 “It’s Joe Morgan’s child!” Ten Nights in a Bar- Room 458 “There it is now!” Ten Nights in a Bar- Room 472 “Huzza for the Rummies!” Ten Nights in a Bar- Room 490 Willie Hammond murdered, Ten Nights in a Bar- Room 505 One long scream of horror, Ten Nights in a Bar- Room 508 “Frank Slade!” Ten Nights in a Bar- Room 533 Cover, Malaeska 538 Title page, Ragged Dick 614 Frontispiece, Little Women 704 Frontispiece, The Gates Ajar 768 As the procession filed in, “The Luck of Roaring Camp” 854 Ben- Hur flour advertisement (1902) 866 Ben-Hur and Arrius, the rescue, act 2, scene 2, Ben-Hur 919 Frontispiece, The Hidden Hand 996 Cover, In His Steps 1102 Virginia and Loreen, In His Steps 1156 xiii PREFACE One of the wonders of printed material is its persuasive power. It can threaten, promise, cajole, and insinuate ideas of lasting influence. Such influence manifests itself in a number of ways, but perhaps one of the most obvious is found in the development of national mythologies. For example, consider the story of George Washington cutting down a cherry tree, a deed he then nobly confesses with the now- immortal words, “I can’t tell a lie.” It is a story that has become synonymous with George Washington, yet it was a fable created by Parson Weems in his tremendously popular biography of the first president. True or not, such stories reveal a great deal about a culture’s thought and life. This volume gathers popular stories that tap into a wide range of nineteenth- century American self- perceptions, fears, dreams and longings. The nineteenth century is particularly impor- tant for such stories because it was a period when these tales increasingly reached their audience in printed forms, as the highly oral culture of the eighteenth century was giving way to a more print- bound culture. This change meant that ever- wider audiences could gain access to, and be influenced by, the same information. In the nineteenth century, the world of American citizens was increasingly formed, framed and fractured by the power of print. Behind the growing print culture found in the nineteenth- century United States stood the fact that American publishing came of age in this century. Whereas printed material had been relatively scarce at the close of the eighteenth century, with most families owning perhaps a Bible and an almanac, by the time of the Civil War thousands of tracts, novels, self- help books, tour guides, magazines and newspapers were littering American parlors. Publishers at the turn of the nineteenth century rarely produced print runs over two thou- sand copies. By mid- century, American publishing had so radically changed that editions of 30,000, 75,000 or even 100,000 copies were common. The forty newspapers published during the American Revolution gave way by the 1860s to more than two thousand daily and weekly papers. By the end of the century, books and other forms of published material were reaching the remotest parts of the country as an evermore advanced transportation network, an increasingly efficient mail system and an army of some fifty thousand door- to- door book salesmen offered an unprecedented range of printed literature to American readers. The amazing growth of America’s publishing enterprises did not happen in a vacuum. These enterprises grew proportionately with rising American literacy rates and multiplying motivations for the consumption of printed matter. As the century wore on, a number of factors propelled American reading habits, including the desire for economic gain, social distinction, political involvement and entertainment. Reading offered people an opportunity for greater social mobility. Those who could read were better able to adapt to the changing employment market of the nineteenth century, BESTSELLERS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA xiv xiv in which literacy skills were increasingly prized for the better- paying, more- prestigious jobs. The massive numbers of self- help books and reform literature that circulated among Americans in the nineteenth century also helped people know how to think and act in ways that distinguished them as socially refined. Such social distinction could also be attained by studying the Greek and Roman classics, an oft- used marker of gentility and good social breeding. Americans also read so that they might gain the information they needed to partici- pate in their local and national governments. From an early age, Americans were taught that democracy demanded participation, and meaningful participation demanded accu- rate information. Thus the political interests of nineteenth- century readers helped fuel a tremendous rise in newspaper circulation and the appearance of a host of printed matter such as political biographies and verbatim reproductions of countless legislative speeches and debates. And Americans read because it was fun. There was great pleasure to be found in learning new things and entering new worlds. The genres of history, travel and adventure enjoyed enormous popularity. The astounding appeal of Lew Wallace’s Ben- Hur can be attributed, at least in part, to the way in which this work incorporated all three of these genres. Reading also changed from a largely oral activity, in which a father might read aloud the Bible or Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress to his family, to a much more individualized practice. This change opened the door for readers to enjoy a wider, often more illicit, range of material. Once shunned as corrupting, reading novels became a central avenue toward entertainment before the end of the century. The present collection was conceived with the desire to capture some of the excitement and diversity of the print culture that was so influential in nineteenth- century American thought and society. It gives a special emphasis to those works that sold astoundingly well when they first appeared. Herman Melville’s Moby- Dick may be extremely well known and widely read today, but when it first appeared it sold so poorly that its publication almost bankrupted the author. In contrast to Moby- Dick , the works in this collection sold extremely well when they first appeared, attracting huge readerships and often inspiring other works, such as plays and sequels, which made them all the more popular. Two other factors influ- enced the choice of texts: a preference for depth over breadth, and an interest in presenting works standing in dialogue with one another. The rationale here is simple. Reading entire works and longer excerpts gives one a fuller appreciation of an author’s intellectual design and enables one to examine narrative arcs and developed lines of argument. Reading works speaking to— and against— other works recreates something of the dynamic of the vital cultural conversations taking place in this period. (The list on pages xvii–xix identifies some of the essential thematic intersections among the texts in this collection.) This collection makes no claim to cover all, or even most, of the important facets of nineteenth-century popular literature. But it does open a modest window into the vast array of literature avidly produced and just as avidly consumed during this period. Through this window, it is hoped that readers will catch informative glimpses that will entice them into further explorations of the splendidly diverse and always amazing print culture that influ- enced every aspect of nineteenth- century American life. xv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS One incurs many debts in publishing a book, and in that spirit I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the many individuals who helped bring this book to completion. My editors at Anthem, Tej Sood and Brian Stone, were incredibly supportive and efficient in helping this work along. I also had an amazing editorial assistant in Richard Higgins, who did much of the heavy lifting in terms of making sure the text was formatted and proofread correctly. Kerilyn Harkaway- Krieger was also of help in preparing the manuscript. And Christoph Irmscher, whose encyclopedic intellectual breadth keeps me ever in awe of him, was incredibly generous in helping me figure out this or that obscure reference— I owe many a footnote to Christoph’s expertise. I also wish to say that, although I had a great deal of help in preparing this book for publication, I alone am responsible for any errors that may appear in its pages. I continue to owe much to friends such as Bob Brown and Alex Van Riesen, who just keep me sane in my life journey through their friendship and their ability to make me laugh. They constantly shine a bit of light into the dark corners of my own often overfull and overanxious life. I have a family that continues to enable me to do the work I love. I thank my wife, Cathy, and my sons, Isaac and Jeremiah, for putting up with my absences— both physical and emotional— as I struggled to finish what became a rather mammoth undertaking. As always, my father, mother and sister, Karen, stand as the absolute gold standard of generos- ity and support. My family has always been there for me in countless ways as I negotiate the varied demands of my career. Finally, I dedicate this book to my Uncle Norman and Aunt Aletta Cole and their sons, Bob, Jim and David. I have been immensely blessed to have both a wonderful immediate and a wonderful extended family. The Coles have always modeled for me a kind of reflex- ive, unselfish and often understated kindness that embodies Aesop’s famous moral that “no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Whether it was Norman showing me magic tricks, Aletta sewing me my own special quilt, Bob letting me be his whist partner when I was hardly even old enough to fan the cards in my hand, Jim making me laugh or David taking me to movies, I have always benefitted in profound, and all- too- often unac- knowledged, ways from their constant acts of kindness. I do not exaggerate when I say that the Coles have shown me great love over the years, and words fail me here as I wish to express my gratitude to them. xvi xvii THEMATIC CONNECTIONS Singleness and Marriage Charlotte Temple Awful Disclosures The Quaker City Evangeline Reveries of a Bachelor Uncle Tom’s Cabin Malaeska Little Women The Hidden Hand In His Steps Care and Education of the Young Life of Washington “To Mothers” “Murderers of Fathers, and Murderers of Mothers” Awful Disclosures Treatise on Domestic Economy Uncle Tom’s Cabin Ten Nights in a Bar- Room Malaeska Ragged Dick Little Women The Gates Ajar “The Luck of Roaring Camp” The Hidden Hand Ben-Hur Proper Conduct Life of Washington “The Forgiving African” “Murderers of Fathers, and Murderers of Mothers” “To Mothers” “Novel Reading” Awful Disclosures Treatise on Domestic Economy Self- Instructor in Phrenology The Quaker City Ten Nights in a Bar- Room Ragged Dick Little Women “The Luck of Roaring Camp” The Gates Ajar In His Steps Temperance “Murderers of Fathers, and Murderers of Mothers” The Quaker City Ten Nights in a Bar- Room The Hidden Hand In His Steps Slavery “The Forgiving African” Uncle Tom’s Cabin The Hidden Hand Novel Reading “Novel Reading” Reveries of a Bachelor Little Women The Gates Ajar In His Steps Rural Life Charlotte Temple Evangeline Uncle Tom’s Cabin Reveries of a Bachelor BESTSELLERS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA xviii xviii Ten Nights in a Bar- Room The Hidden Hand The South Evangeline Uncle Tom’s Cabin The Hidden Hand Business Treatise on Domestic Economy The Quaker City Ten Nights in a Bar- Room Uncle Tom’s Cabin Ragged Dick Ben-Hur In His Steps Domesticity and Gender Roles Charlotte Temple Awful Disclosures Treatise on Domestic Economy “To Mothers” The Quaker City Evangeline Reveries of a Bachelor Uncle Tom’s Cabin Ten Nights in a Bar- Room Malaeska Ragged Dick “The Luck of Roaring Camp” Little Women The Gates Ajar Ben- Hur The Hidden Hand In His Steps Masculinity Life of Washington “Murderers of Fathers, and Murderers of Mothers” Awful Disclosures Self- Instructor in Phrenology The Quaker City Reveries of a Bachelor Uncle Tom’s Cabin Ten Nights in a Bar- Room “The Luck of Roaring Camp” Ben- Hur Social Reform Life of Washington “To Mothers” “Murderers of Fathers, and Murderers of Mothers” “Novel Reading” The Quaker City Uncle Tom’s Cabin Ten Nights in a Bar- Room “John Jenkins” In His Steps Religion Life of Washington “To Mothers” “Murderers of Fathers, and Murderers of Mothers” “Novel Reading” Awful Disclosures Treatise on Domestic Economy Evangeline The Quaker City Reveries of a Bachelor “John Jenkins” “The Luck of Roaring Camp” The Gates Ajar Little Women Ragged Dick Uncle Tom’s Cabin Malaeska Ben- Hur In His Steps Urban Life “Murderers of Fathers, and Murderers of Mothers” Awful Disclosures THEMATIC CONNECTIONS xix xix The Quaker City Malaeska Ben-Hur Ten Nights in a Bar- Room In His Steps The West Evangeline Malaeska The Gates Ajar “The Luck of Roaring Camp” In His Steps Race Self- Instructor in Phrenology The Quaker City Uncle Tom’s Cabin Malaeska Ben- Hur Published in 1868 Ragged Dick Little Women The Gates Ajar The Hidden Hand (second appearance) “The Luck of Roaring Camp”