The Salem Belle: A Tale of 1692

by Ebenezer Wheelwright, Richard Kopley (Editor)

Overview

The Salem Belle is a historical novel, a tale of vengeance and superstition set against the Salem witchcraft tragedy of 1692. Rejected by the beautiful Mary—“the Salem belle”—the bitter Trellison accuses her of witchcraft, mistakenly thinking himself motivated by religious faith. She is quickly tried and convicted, and her brother James and her fiancé, Walter, must try to rescue the persecuted woman. Engaging in its own right, The Salem Belle invites renewed interest because it is a critical source for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterwork, The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne transformed three scenes from Wheelwright’s novel for his own. In so doing, Hawthorne covertly elaborated his lifelong theme: original sin and the possibility of redemption.

Hawthorne scholar Richard Kopley, who has recovered The Salem Belle for twenty-first-century literary study, introduces and annotates Wheelwright’s novel, providing relevant historical details as well as pertinent details about Wheelwright’s life and reading. Kopley also furnishes three appendixes that will facilitate understanding of The Salem Belle and further analysis of its place in American literary history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271077055
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	01/07/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Ebenezer Wheelwright was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1800. He spent most of his professional life as a West Indies merchant in Boston.
Richard Kopley is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Penn State DuBois.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Note on the Text xi

Introduction Richard Kopley 1

The Salem Belle: A Tale of 1692 23

Appendix A Publication History of the Salem Belle 182

Appendix B Reviews of the Salem Belle 182

Appendix C Scholarship on, and Scholarly Mention of, the Salem Belle 191

Notes 193

Editorial Reviews

It is wonderful to have The Salem Belle back in print, edited expertly by Richard Kopley. Published eight years before The Scarlet Letter, Ebenezer Wheelwright’s novel was an important part of the cultural mix behind Hawthorne's masterpiece, as Kopley demonstrates in his perceptive introduction. The Salem Belle also stands on its own as a thought-provoking novel about Puritan times written from the perspective of nineteenth-century America.”

—David S. Reynolds, author of Beneath the American Renaissance and Walt Whitman's America

“Richard Kopley’s discovery that Ebenezer Wheelwright’s The Salem Belle (1842) was a precursor to Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) is substantiated by his careful and perceptive attention to detail. The novel itself is fun and quirky and explores the kinds of historical and cultural issues that also motivated Hawthorne. Kopley’s argument is sound, clear, and persuasive, and the connections he makes are right on target.”

—Samuel Chase Coale, Wheaton College

“Richard Kopley has provided a valuable service by making available this historical work about Salem, which served as one of the sources for The Scarlet Letter. Not only is it interesting to look for intertextualities between the two books, but this work stands on its own as a fascinating portrait of the turbulent times it describes.”

—Joel Myerson, University of South Carolina

“Hawthorne scholars will be intrigued by Richard Kopley’s claim that several passages toward the end of The Salem Belle inspired passages in the forest and New England holiday sections of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Reprinting The Salem Belle also contributes an additional text to conversations about the witchcraft hysteria that many people, especially students, probably know from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The novel provides another fictional window onto seventeenth-century Boston and Salem society—especially the social and religious scenes. It is an easy read, and when the plot thickens with the vengeance-inspired accusations that Mary Lyford is a witch, it is compelling.”

—Leland S. Person, University of Cincinnati

From the Publisher