Oldtown Folks

Oldtown Folks

Stowe, Harriet Beecher

Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1869

Internet Archive

1869

George Eliot to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, 11 July 1869. “Nothing but a trouble so great as this would have prevented me from writing again to you, not only to thank you and Professor Stowe for your letters, but also to tell you that I have received and read "Oldtown Folks." I think few of your many readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture of an elder generation, for my interest in it has a double root: one is my love for our old-fashioned provincial life which had its affinities with a contemporary life even all across the Atlantic, and of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases, from my father and mother with their relatives; the other is, my experimental acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own except by indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and true tolerance. A thorough comprehension of the mixed moral influence shed on society by dogmatic systems is rare even among writers, and one misses it altogether in English drawing-room talk. I thank you sincerely for the gift (in every sense) of this book, which I can see has been a labour of love.” GEL 5: 48

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Oldtown Folks, George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57180

https://georgeeliotarchive.org/files/original/473e32eab29608a8c9470ecedfe8a543.pdf