Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (264 page)

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Page 1475

her previous works had disappointed her, and she hoped that by bringing out
Oldtown Folks
directly in book form it would do better. The plates for the original Fields, Osgood edition were used for many subsequent reprintings by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

The standards for American English continue to fluctuate and in some ways were conspicuously different in earlier periods from what they are now. In nineteenth-century writings, for example, a word might be spelled in more than one way, even in the same work, and such variations might be carried into print. Commas were sometimes used expressively to suggest the movements of voice, and capitals were sometimes meant to give significances to a word beyond those it might have in its uncapitalized form. Since modernization would remove these effects, this volume has preserved the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and wording of the first editions, which, of the available texts, appear most faithful to Stowe's intentions.

The present edition is concerned only with representing the texts of these editions; it does not attempt to reproduce features of the typographic designsuch as the display capitalization of chapter openings. Footnotes within the text are by Stowe. Open contractions are retained as they appeared in the original texts. However some changes have been made. A Table of Contents has been added to
The Minister's Wooing
corresponding to the chapter titles in the original edition. Typographical errors have also been corrected. The following is a list of those errors, cited by page and line numbers: 37.37, parlor?; 65.15, swet; 81.1, [title omitted]; 137.26, peacably; 144.2, chewing; 252.13, knees; 257.3, Ohpelia's; 349.40, down.; 381.9, shope; 395.5, in in; 409.30, grad; 537.8, candes; 542.13, lowers; 564.3940, Armenian; 572.14, Marvyn he; 600.13, gods and; 611.39, Chatechism; 633.3, "Candace, said; 683.36, as not.; 684.10, instrument, it; 701.30, he; 746.24, affection"; 749.5, money,; 758.9, is'n't; 759.13, love?; 849.39, know.; 909.36, wrong"; 950.3536, Rosseter; 955.24,
We;
1012.37, 'There 's; 1068.17, "There it!"; 1083.20, it?'; 1161.17, lips,'; 1194.23, lady; 1258.19, Héloise,'; 1348.35, You; 1408.8, and,'; 1433.6, livin.'; 1440.3, down.; 1447.16, 'O Aunty; 1448.34, aunty. Errors corrected second printing, June 1982: 7.4, see;

Page 1476

815.36, stocial. Errors corrected fifth printing, March 1985: 314.13, cathecism; 556.21, didatic; 709.19, sleepess (
LOA
); 714.29, mediated (
LOA
); 802.28, fail; 810.26, enthusiam; 923.3, suppositious (
LOA
); 1182.35, unconvenanted (
LOA
); 1237.13, Calvinsim (
LOA
); 1249.3, Calvinsim (
LOA
); 1335.4, least (
LOA
). Errors corrected sixth printing: 638.7, self.

Page 1477

Notes

In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of the present volume (the line count includes chapter headings).

Uncle Tom's Cabin

18.4019.4 The general one;] Economic and social historians have shown that this regional difference was largely based on different work processes involved in the production of tobacco in border states such as Kentucky and Virginia and the production of cotton, rice, and sugar in the more southern states of South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas. Since the U.S. Constitution ended the legal importation of slaves from Africa in 1808, the latter states relied on the former to supply their labor needs.

80.9 constitutional relations] Reference here is made to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which was part of the Missouri Compromise, allowing fugitive slaves in the free states to be hunted, captured, and returned to their owners.

129.3239 "Run killed."] Much of Harriet Beecher Stowe's knowledge of slavery came from such newspaper advertisements, which were featured in Theodore Weld's
American Slavery as It Is
(1839).

162.2 The Quaker Settlement.] Quakers formed the backbone of the anti-slavery movement from 1830 to 1850.

232.3435 Hungarian fugitives] Refers to immigrants after the Hungarian revolution of 1848, especially as represented by Louis Kossuth.

The Minister's Wooing

540.3437 The system institutions.] Refers to Dr. Samuel Hopkins (17211803), minister of the First Congregational Church of Providence, Rhode Island. One of the most creative and important disciples of Jonathan Edwards, he argued that the redeemed were limited to those who had experienced religious conversion and he attempted to limit church membership to those who could testify about their religious rebirth. Hopkins's condemnation of slavery made him unpopular with many of his parishioners.

656.79 Sprung this] Aaron Burr's maternal grandfather was Jonathan Edwards. Edwards's influence on New England religious life extended far beyond his own lifetime (17031758) because he combined vivid hell-fire preaching with a theology that reconciled Lockean empiricism and Calvinist beliefs in predestination.

718.21 I know.] James Marvyn's death was prefigured in Harriet

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Beecher Stowe's experience not only by the death of her son Henry, in 1857, before he had experienced religious conversion, but also by the death in 1822 of Catharine Beecher's fiance, Alexander M. Fisher, Professor of Natural Philosophy at Yale College, in a similar spiritual state. A vigorous discussion of this issue can be found in the correspondence of Catharine and Lyman Beecher at this time (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College).

Oldtown Folks

924.40 lay figure] A manikin used by artists as a means of displaying drapery.

C
ATALOGING
I
NFORMATION

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 18111896.

Three novels: Uncle Tom's cabin; The minister's wooing; Oldtown folks.

(The Library of America; 4)

Contents: Uncle Tom's cabin, or, Life among the lowlyThe Minister's wooingOldtown folks.

I. Sklar, Kathryn Kish. II. Title. III. Uncle Tom's cabin. IV. The minister's wooing. V. Oldtown folks. VI. Series. PS2951.5.S5 1982 813'.3

81-18629 ISBN 0-940450-01-1