Trials of intimacy : love and loss in the Beecher-Tilton scandal
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Trials of intimacy : love and loss in the Beecher-Tilton scandal
University of Chicago Press, c1999
- : cloth
Available at 2 libraries
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 405-412) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The nation's leading minister stands accused of adultery. He vehemently denies the charge but confesses to being on "the ragged edge of despair". His alleged lover is a woman of mystical faith, nearly "Catholic" in her piety. Her husband, a famous writer, sues the minister for damages. A six-month trial ends inconclusively, but it holds the nation in thrall. It produces gripping drama, scathing cartoons, and soul-searching editorials. This book is the story of a scandal that shook American culture to the core in the 1870s because the key players were such vaunted moral leaders. Henry Ward Beecher was pastor of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church and for many the "representative man" of mid-19th century America. Elizabeth Tilton was the wife of Beecher's longtime intimate friend Theodore. His accusation of "criminal conversation" between Henry and Elizabeth confronted the American public with entirely new dilemmas about religion and intimacy, privacy and publicity, reputation and celebrity. The scandal spotlighted a series of comic and tragic loves and betrayals among these three figures, with a supporting cast that included Victoria Woodhull, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
To readers at the time, the Beecher-Tilton Scandal was an irresistible mystery. Richard Fox puts his readers into that same reverberating story, while offering it as a timeless tale of love, deception, faith, and the confounding indeterminacy of truth. The book revises one's conception of 19th-century morals and passions, and is an American history resonant with contemporary dramas.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Introduction One: Last Accounts, 1907, 1897, 1887 Two: Final Stories, 1876, 1878, 1884 Three: Public Retellings, 1874 Four: Public Retellings, 1875 Five: Private Retellings, Public Exposures, 1870-1873 Six: Early Stories, 1855-1866 Seven: Early Stories, 1867-1869 Eight: The Tilton Letters, 1866-1869 Nine: Legends, Histories, 1999-1872 Appendix: Documents, 1863-1874 Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
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