The Damnation of Theron Ware |
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Author:
| Frederic, Harold |
ISBN: | 978-1-4921-2042-1 |
Publication Date: | Aug 2013 |
Publisher: | CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
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Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | USD $11.95 |
Book Description:
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"Distinctly a great novel... Frederic's vivid, strong, and masterful delineation of a corner of American life as it actually is--the good and the bad, the fine and the crude, the enlightened and the ignorant--in one finely drawn, consistent picture imbued with penetrating power makes The Damnation of Theron Ware a literary event of very great importance." - Harry Thurston Peck, Cosmopolitan
"Ought to be called a masterpiece." -Arthur Waugh
"[Frederic's] most brilliant...
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"Distinctly a great novel... Frederic's vivid, strong, and masterful delineation of a corner of American life as it actually is--the good and the bad, the fine and the crude, the enlightened and the ignorant--in one finely drawn, consistent picture imbued with penetrating power makes The Damnation of Theron Ware a literary event of very great importance." - Harry Thurston Peck, Cosmopolitan
"Ought to be called a masterpiece." -Arthur Waugh
"[Frederic's] most brilliant achievement." --Edmund Wilson
"It gives us America at a watershed moment in its history, with science advancing and orthodox religion retreating, with the old Anglo oligarchy challenged by new immigrants, with sexuality slowly moving beyond closed doors and shadows, with ambition becoming more rank and unashamed, with early stirrings of what we now know as feminism. More than a century after its publication it remains vivid and pertinent. Frederic's occasional lapses into sarcasm and melodramatic language may seem excessive, but they were characteristic of his time and should be accepted as such. 'The Damnation of Theron Ware,' according to the editor of my old hardcover copy, is 'a minor masterpiece,' and I say he's right." -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post, November 27, 2006
"There have been few American stories in recent years better worthy the attention of those who seek for originality and artistic power." -Literary News, Volume 17, January, 1896
"Theron Ware is a Methodist minister who is rather disappointed, principally for is wife's sake, in being appointed to a rather ignorant and strait-laced as well as impecunious rural congregation. He falls in love with a beautiful and wholly unscrupulous young woman, the daughter of rich people and a special pillar of the Roman Catholic Church. His temporary downfall brings in many reflections on races, religions and systems of philosophy. The influence of wholly selfish people upon a naturally noble man chiefly through their effect upon his starved mind is the keynote of an elaborate study in psychology and ethics." -Publishers Weekly
Originally published in 1896, The Damnation of Theron Ware is a profound psychological portrait of the spiritual undoing of a guileless Methodist minister who is taken in by a rural townspeople's various progressive ideas, from liberalism to bohemianism, only to be spurned by them for being too conventional. It was described by Everett Carter as "among the four or five best novels written by an American during the nineteenth century."