Agnes of Sorrento

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The scene is laid in central Italy during the time of the infamous Pope Alexander VI. (from 1492 to 1503). Agnes is the daughter of a Roman prince who secretly marries, and then deserts, a girl of humble parentage. The young mother dies of grief, and Elsie, the grandmother, takes Agnes to Sorrento, where she lives by selling oranges in the streets. Her beauty and her purity attract to her many lovers, worthy and unworthy, and involve her in many romantic and dramatic incidents.

Genres: Historical Fiction

412 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1862

About the author

Great political influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin , novel against slavery of 1852 of Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, American writer, advanced the cause of abolition.

Lyman Beecher fathered Catharine Esther Beecher, Edward Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, another child.

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, an author, attacked the cruelty, and reached millions of persons as a play even in Britain. She made the tangible issues of the 1850s to millions and energized forces in the north. She angered and embittered the south. A commonly quoted statement, apocryphally attributed to Abraham Lincoln, sums up the effect. He met Stowe and then said, "So you're the little woman that started this great war!" or so people say.

AKA:
Χάρριετ Μπήτσερ Στόου (Greek)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet...

Reviews

[Michelle Atno-hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I portray Stowe at The Great Dickens Christmas Fair and at local Civil War re-enactments, I have been reading her entire oeuvre, including her more obscure works. Agnes of Sorrento was published ten years after Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the book that made her rich and famous. She was inspired by her travels in Italy in 1859-60 and much was made of her sympathetic portrayal of Catholicism, especially since her father, the famous preacher Lyman Beecher, spoke vehemently against the Roman faith.

The book itself is a fairly anodyne ‘forbidden’ love story set against the Alexander VI papacy. A poor religious girl with a secret, noble past must struggle against men who lust for her and the desire of her grandmother to marry her off to a prosperous but full blacksmith. The story winds through Sorrento and nearby Vesuvius, bandits, and Borgia’s Rome, but ends happily (of course.) Purple prose and cardboard characters can’t entirely dispel the naive charm of this story, but there is a reason the few people read Agnes of Sorrento today.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the story and characters. I just wish she didn't describe so much stuff. All her sentences are beautiful, but there are just too many. Everyone once in a while she will paint a perfect picture, but mostly, I just glaze over until something happens.