Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait, by Paxton Hibben (HC, 1942, $2)
Hm, Henry Ward Beecher...
Was he the father of Harriett Beecher Stowe? Nope, he was her brother, and what a brother he was. As a preacher and public speaker, he was paid $20,000 a year. He claimed to be a friend of Lincoln, but Lincoln despised him. He drank and loved the theater. He was charged with adultery with a friend's wife, and was probably guilty. He spent the entire Civil War safely in England. Yet this "combination of St. Augustine, Barnum and John Barrymore" would help pull the American public away from their Puritan and Calvinist beliefs, and toward the more liberal views of the latter 1800s, including evolution and women's suffrage, all without making anyone, including himself, uncomfortable. Now isn't that an amazing talent?
Look for this book in the biography section, avail. 11/29
