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A novel written in the 1920s and set in the Salem witch...)
A novel written in the 1920s and set in the Salem witch-hunting days. A young girl is convinced by the spirit of the times that the accusation against her of witchcraft is true.
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This vivid account of the life and times of Paul Revere...)
This vivid account of the life and times of Paul Revere was first published in 1942 to great acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize. An elegant storyteller and expert historian, Edith Forbes paints a memorable portrait of American colonial history and of this most legendary of revolutionary heroes -- "not merely one man riding one horse on a certain lonely night of long ago, but a symbol to which his countrymen can yet turn."
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Johnny Tremain, winner of the 1944 Newbery Medal, is on...)
Johnny Tremain, winner of the 1944 Newbery Medal, is one of the finest historical novels ever written for children. As compelling today as it was seventy years ago, to read this riveting novel is to live through the defining events leading up to the American Revolutionary War. Fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain, an apprentice silversmith with a bright future ahead of him, injures his hand in a tragic accident, forcing him to look for other work. In his new job as a horse-boy, riding for the patriotic newspaper, The Boston Observer, and as a messenger for the Sons of Liberty, he encounters John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren. Soon Johnny is involved in the pivotal events shaping the American Revolution from the Boston Tea Party to the first shots fired at Lexington. Powerful illustrations by American artist Michael McCurdy bring to life Esther Forbes's quintessential novel of the American Revolution.
Esther Louise Forbes was an American novelist, historian and children's writer who received the Pulitzer Prize and the Newbery Medal.
Background
He was born in Westborough, Massachussets, the daughter of William Trowbridge Forbes, a judge, and Harriette Merrifield, a historian who wrote Gravestones of Early New England and the Men Who Made Them (1927).
Esther Forbes grew up in a household in Worcester, Massachussets, that encouraged both her fascination with the past and her interest in writing.
As a child she enjoyed hearing New England legends, poring over old books, family papers, and issues of Godey's Lady Book in the family attic, and making up stories.
When she was nine years old she joined her brothers and sisters in producing a small magazine that they called Chronapax and printed on a hand press their mother had given them for Christmas.
During her teenage years Forbes wrote several historical novels with settings in Renaissance Europe and ancient Troy; these unpublished works reveal a precocious mind caught up in romantic melodrama.
Education
Forbes graduated from Bradford Academy in Haverhill, Massachussets, in 1912.
From 1916 to 1918 she took writing courses at the University of Wisconsin.
But Forbes did not devote her energies to formal education; she was the only one of five Forbes children who did not complete college and go on to graduate school.
Career
From December 1919 until mid-1926 Forbes worked on the editorial staff of Houghton Mifflin in Boston.
She said that her most important accomplishment there was the discovery of Rafael Sabatini, whose historical romances were extremely popular in the 1920's.
Nevertheless, it is likely that the editorial experience she gained helped Forbes develop her craft.
Her first novel, O Genteel Lady (1926), garnered critical acclaim and sold well. Set in Boston in the mid-nineteenth century, it centered on a young woman struggling to reconcile her literary aspirations with her sexual passions and the social conventions of the era.
Forbes returned to Worcester, where she lived in her family home with her mother, a brother, and a sister. Forbes added to her critical reputation with A Mirror for Witches (1928), which many consider to be her finest work of fiction.
In this remarkable fusion of the historical novel and psychological realism, Forbes told the story of a tormented girl in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachussets, from the point of view of an apologist for the Salem witchcraft trials.
By adopting the style of the great Puritan diarists, Forbes gained sufficient distance to write skillfully and subtly about emotional deprivation and the perversion of sexual desire in a repressive society.
Miss Marvel (1935), which traced the life of a spinster who retreats into a world of fantasy and imaginary lovers, further illustrated Forbes's concern with imaginative women who allow their lives to be wasted. Forbes was less successful in the long, panoramic novel Paradise (1937), which focused on a colonial Massachusetts community during the time of King Philip's War.
The General's Lady (1938) was a less substantial work set during the final years of the American Revolution. Forbes intended to write a novel about a man who remained neutral during the Revolution, but the Nazi invasion of Poland and the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor radically changed her views and her plans. World War II led Forbes to explore the nature of freedom and warfare.
The result was Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (1942), a biography that reflected her extraordinary ability to capture the details of everyday life. Her mother collaborated on the extensively researched book, which won a Pulitzer Prize for history.
Forbes's later books were well received, but they are not among her most interesting works.
America's Paul Revere (1948) recast her earlier biography for children. The Running of the Tide (1948) focused on a Salem family in the early nineteenth century, and Rainbow on the Road (1954) paid tribute to American folk art by describing the experiences of an itinerant limner.
At the time of her death in Worcester, she was at work on a history of witchcraft in New England.
Forbes earned the respect of historians and reviewers, who praised her lively re-creation of the past, her meticulous treatment of historical detail, and her skillful delineation of character.
Forbes preferred life in Worcester with her family and dogs to the literary circles of large cities, but she was a serious artist whose best work added new dimensions to the historical novel. A Mirror for Witches and Johnny Tremain seem likely to endure.
In this remarkable fusion of the historical novel and psychological realism, Forbes told the story of a tormented girl in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachussets, from the point of view of an apologist for the Salem witchcraft trials.
By adopting the style of the great Puritan diarists, Forbes gained sufficient distance to write skillfully and subtly about emotional deprivation and the perversion of sexual desire in a repressive society.
Membership
In 1960 Forbes became the first woman elected to membership in the American Antiquarian Society.
Connections
Forbes married Albert Learned Hoskins, a lawyer, in January 1926. They resided in New York City and then Boston until 1933, when they were divorced.