Warner, Susan Bogert

views updated

WARNER, Susan Bogert

Born 11 July 1819, New York, New York; died 17 March 1885, Highland Falls, New York

Wrote under: Susan B. Warner, Elizabeth Wetherall

Daughter of Henry W. and Anna Bartlett Warner

Susan Bogert Warner's family was prosperous during her childhood, but the depression of 1837 saw the collapse of their fortunes. Thereafter, Warner and her sister Anna were responsible for the support of themselves, their father (their mother had died young), and a paternal aunt. Their father had purchased Constitution Island, in the Hudson River opposite West Point, as a summer retreat, but the family was forced to make it their permanent home. The sisters cooked, gardened, chopped wood, and fished.

At her aunt's suggestion, and because of a great need for money, Warner wrote The Wide, Wide World (1850), which went through many editions in many languages. She and her sister were among the century's most prolific writers, but their earnings were small, partly due to literary piracy.

A sensitive, rather morbid personality distinguished Warner from her younger sister socially, but hers was the greater talent. Although poverty and hard work narrowed her world, she managed to travel some, meeting Emerson and other New England literary figures in Boston. She spent almost every winter in New York, where she knew such writers as Alice and Phoebe Cary.

The Wide, Wide World, which had been rejected by several publishers, was a literary phenomenon. Its basic appeal is to girls and women. After her mother dies, Ellen Montgomery must live with other relatives—first an old maid aunt who runs her own farm and then a worldly Scottish family who claim her for a time. Ellen finds they try her Christian patience—and they disapprove of her priggish ways. No matter what the issue, Ellen expresses herself by bursting into tears. (Biographers say that Warner was apt to cry frequently herself.) However sentimental this novel appears today, Warner's ability to tell a story and to involve the reader in the lives of her characters is superior.

Warner's second novel, Queechy (1852), almost as popular as her first, tells how, after the death of her grandfather and the business failure of her uncle, young Fleda Ringgan helps support her family by selling flowers and garden produce. Throughout the novels of both sisters, young women in financial difficulties are commonplace; they are often furnished with a father, uncle, or guardian who cannot function once his money is gone. The autobiographical element is obvious. While the sisters preserved a pious respect for their father (who lived until 1875), their books reveal their annoyance with such helpless characters. In Queechy even the resourceful heroine feels faint if she must answer the door or eat with the hired girl, but the late novel Nobody (1882) shows a family of sisters who do their own work and thrive on it. Presumably, as the years passed, Warner became more accustomed to her status in life.

By herself and in collaboration with Anna, she wrote many children's books. Most of them are highly didactic and were popular in the Sunday school libraries of the time. Although both sisters were evangelical Presbyterians—they disapproved of the theater, but not of all novels—Warner's books are centered on accepting and serving Christ, with little interest in doctrinal or controversial themes.

Most of her adult novels are what she called "true stories" (she didn't like the word "novel"). The books usually have a good Christian heroine (or hero) who overcomes poverty and becomes successful. Meals of bread and molasses are to be found in these books, but generous meals are much more common.

In Diana (1877), Warner attributes her fascination with writing about food to her intimate knowledge of is preparation. "Sympathy and affection and tender ministry are wrought into the very pie crust, and glow in the brown loaves as they come out of the oven; and are specially seen in the shortcake for tea and the favorite dish at dinner and the unexpected dumpling." Warner had a gift for describing the material things of life; a reading of her novels will give the modern reader a close look into 19th-century American kitchen cupboards, desk drawers, and clothes closets.

Interest today in Warner's books is mainly historical. She is one of the best of the "damned mob of scribbling women" of her time, however, and deserves serious consideration from literary scholars.

Other Works:

(The following is a list of Susan Bogert Warner's more important works. A complete bibliography is included in They Wrote for a Living, compiled by D. H. Sanderson, 1976). The Law and the Testimony (1853). The Hills of the Shatemuc (1856). The Old Helmet (1863). Melbourne House (1864). Daisy (1868). Walks from Eden (1870). The House in Town (1872). A Story of Small Beginnings (1872). Willow Brook (1874). Say and Do Series (1875). Bread and Oranges (1877). Pine Needles (1877). The Broken Wall of Jerusalem and the Rebuilding of Them (1878). The Flag of Truce (1878). The Kingdom of Judak (1878). My Desire (1879). The End of the Coil (1880). The Letter of Credit (1882). Stephen, M.D. (1883). A Red Wallflower (1884). Daisy Plains (1885).

Bibliography:

Baker, M., Light in the Morning: Memories of Susan and Anna Warner (1978). Sanderson, D. H., They Wrote for a Living: A Bibliography of Susan Bogert Warner (1976). Stokes, O. E., Letters and Memoirs of Susan and Anna Bartlett Warner (1925). Warner, A., Susan Warner (1909).