Wide World to Explore A Report on Susan Warner s The Wide Wide World
A Wide World to Explore: A Report on Susan Warner’s The Wide, Wide World PUBLICATION INFORMATION Susan Warner originally published The Wide, Wide World, under the pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell, at the end of 1850, with the publishing house G. ... Hailed as the first American bestseller, The Wide, Wide World went under through fourteen editions in two years (Baym 141), and in the long run, may have been as popular as Uncle Tom’s Cabin with the readers of the nineteenth century. ... The Wide, Wide World by Susan Warner is one the most neglected and unsung work of American literature, and it deserves to be recognized and given its pace on the shelf of American classic literature. BIOGRAPHY Under the pseudonym of Elizabeth Wetherell, Susan Bogert Warner authored more than thirty novels. Her first two novels, The Wide, Wide World in 1850 and Queechy in 1852 appreciated a never before seen publishing success; Susan Warner enjoyed a broad and massive appeal to literary audiences. The Wide, Wide World has been called several times the first American bestseller. Susan Warner, in subsequent novels, followed a pattern of writing deeply religious and moralistic fiction like her first two novels (MacDonald 363). Susan Warner was born July 11, 1819, the elder of two daughters born eight years apart to Henry Whiting Warner and Anna Marsh Bartlett Warner. Susan Warner grew up in wealth and luxury until her father lost has fortune in the Panic of 1837 (MacDonald 363). The downfall of the family fortune is what lead to Susan and her sister, Anna, to writing; both of whom enjoyed tremendous literary success. However, the Warner family never fully recovered from the loss of their family fortune (MacDonald 364). Both Susan and Anna Warner never got the full royalties from their writing because they sold the rights to their works for a large amount of immediate cash. Known for their ardent Protestant faith and local New England colorful colloquies, both Susan and her sister were much beloved by readers and critics alike. ... Susan Warner died on March 17, 1885 (MacDonald 364). SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD In Susan Warner’s domestic epic narrates the seven-year pilgrimage of young Ellen Montgomery who is sent out into the wide world at age ten by a dying mother and a careless father. The Wide, Wide World opens with Ellen gazing out the window onto a rainy, dispiriting November day as her delicate invalid mother dozes; the somber setting forebodes the sorrowful fate that soon descents upon Ellen. Within the first twenty pages, Ellen learns her ill mother must be moved to a milder clime, and because of a lost lawsuit and her mother’s failing health, Ellen is exiled to her paternal aunt’s farm.