Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Edited by Annie
Fields. (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. 7s. 6d.)—About eight years ago, while she was still living, Mrs. Stowe's son, Charles Edward Stowe, wrote an attractive Life of his mother, which was reviewed in our columns (February 22nd, 1890). "His sequence of material," Mrs. Fields observes, "concerning her early days left little to be -desired ; but many letters and much new material have since appeared. It is therefore thought, and not without justice, that a complete biography is likely to be favourably received by the public." Mrs. Fields has done the work as well probably as it could be done, but she is under the disadvantage of having to retell much of a story which to many of her readers will be already familiar. There is scope, however, for the biographer in the dove- tailing of the old material with the new matter, and this has been done with a skilful hand. Of the one unfortunate episode in Mrs. Stowe's life arising out of her friendship with Lady Byron, the writer is discreet enough to say as little as possible; in the rest of Mrs. Stowe's career there is nothing which is not creditable to her as a woman and an author. To lead at home one of the happiest of lives as wife and mother, and at the same time to win a European fame, was a lot she may have shared with a few highly favoured women ; but the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," while gaining fame and money and troops of friends, had the singular fortune of promoting at the same time a great social revolution. Mrs. Fields's narrative has many merits. It is written with sympathy and judgment ; it leaves, without any straining for effect, a vivid impression on the mind ; it is a model of concise biography, for the story is told in less than four hundred pages ; and it contains a full index. A book so good in literary quality and treating of a theme so attractive deserves to be widely read.
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