Description

Overview:

Charlotte Temple was the most popular work of fiction in the antebellum United States, and, even after it was supplanted by books like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Charlotte Temple continued to be widely read in America throughout the nineteenth century. Remarkably, many contemporary readers believed this to be a true story, rather than a novel. Or, perhaps better, they enjoyed thinking that Rowson’s story might true, or contained within it the essence of some kind of moral truth, even if at some level they recognized that it was unlikely to be a documentary record of actual events. So strong was this desire to believe in the truth of Charlotte’s sad tale that at some point in the middle of the nineteenth century, a grave stone bearing the name “Charlotte Temple” was laid in the graveyard of New York City’s Trinity Church. It became a tourist destination and a kind of pilgrimage site for the novel’s many fans. In 1903, a man wrote in to the New York Post with his childhood memory of the site: “When I was a boy the story of Charlotte Temple was familiar in the household of every New Yorker. The first tears I ever saw in the eyes of a grown person were shed for her. In that churchyard are graves of heroes, philosophers, and martyrs, whose names are familiar to the youngest scholar, and whose memory is dear to the wisest and best. Their graves, tho marked by imposing monuments, win but a glance of curiosity, while the turf over Charlotte Temple is kept fresh by falling tears.”

Subject:

English Language Arts

Level:

Community College / Lower Division, College / Upper Division

Material Type:

Reading

Author:

Susanna Rowson

Provider:

The Open Anthology of Literature in English

Date Added:

07/10/2017