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by Mary J. Holmes (Author)
Mary Jane Holmes (April 5, 1825 - October 6, 1907) was a bestselling and prolific American author who published 39 popular novels, as well as short stories. Her first novel sold 250,000 copies; and she had total sales of 2 million books in her lifetime, second only to Harriet Beecher Stowe.Portraying domestic life in small-town and rural settings, she examined gender relationships, as well as those of class and race. She also dealt with slavery and the American Civil War with a strong sense of moral justice. Since the late 20th century she has received fresh recognition and reappraisal, although her popular work was excluded from most 19th-century literary histories. Early life and education: Mary Jane Hawes was born in Brookfield, Massachusetts in 1825, the fifth of Fanny (Olds) and Preston Hawes' nine children. The household was economically modest, but the parents encouraged intellectual endeavor. She may also have been influenced by her uncle, Rev. Joel Hawes (1789-1867), for many years minister at the First Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut, and known for his published sermons and other writings. Preston Hawes died when Mary Jane was 12 and she started teaching school at 13. Interested in writing from an early age, she published her first story at 15. Career: Holmes used her experiences in Kentucky for the material of several novels. In 1854 at the age of 29, she published her first novel, Tempest and Sunshine. Its central girl characters, Julia and Fanny, were reportedly modeled on the local family of John Singleton and his daughters Bettie and Susan. The portrayal of girls with contrasting characters was resolved with a sense of moral justice, as they both traveled personal journeys of growth. While sales of the novel were slow at first, they steadily continued, and ultimately totaled about 250,000 copies. Reprinted in 1886, this novel was her most popular. She was first published by Appleton, and later for 20 years by G.W. Carleton, which was succeeded by G.W. Dillingham, all of New York City. As The Nation noted in its obituary at her death: It is an eternal paradox of our world of letters that the books which enjoy the largest sale are barely recognized as existing by the guardians of literary tradition. Mrs. Mary Jane Holmes, who died Sunday at Brockport, N.Y., wrote thirty-nine novels with aggregate sales, it is said, of more than two million copies, and yet she had not even a paragraph devoted to her life and works in the histories of American Literature. ("The Week") The theme of most of her novels was domestic life, reflecting society in the antebellum years, as well as during and after the American Civil War. Her books were very popular and she was published by major firms in New York. Her sales were second nationally only to those of Harriet Beecher Stowe; in total Holmes sold more than two million books. As the literary scholar Judith Fetterley notes: the literature of mid-nineteenth century women is essentially about women. Thus the first truth the women have to tell is that not all Americans are male and the assumption that an American text must be a man's story told by men is partisan to say the least. Were this truth to be told, of course, it would require a redefinition of what constitutes an American theme; it would require the possibility that a story by a woman about women could be an American text...at issue equally is the matter of perspective. For a man's story told by a man is not necessarily the same as a man's story told by a woman.Critics of the time and early 20th century classified Holmes' and other women authors' work as "sentimental" and downplayed it because of appeal to the common reader. Recent critics have appreciated how Holmes grappled seriously with issues of gender, race and class, as well as slavery and the Civil War. She created attractive characters who also had flaws, with whom readers could identify......
