Play Audiobook Sample
Doomed Romance: Broken Hearts, Lost Souls, and Sexual Tumult in Nineteenth-Century America Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(0.00) - 0 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A thwarted love triangle of heartbreak rediscovered after almost two hundred years—two men and a woman of equal ambition—that exploded in scandal and investigation, set between America's Revolution and its Civil War, revealing an age in subtle and powerful transformation, caught between the fight for women's rights and the campaign waged by evangelical Protestants to dominate the nation's culture and politics. From the winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize in History.
At its center—and the center of a love triangle—Martha Parker, a gifted young New England woman, smart, pretty, ambitious, determined to make the most of her opportunities, aspiring to become an educator and a foreign missionary.
Late in 1825, Martha accepted a proposal from a schoolmaster, Thomas Tenney, only to reject him several weeks later for a rival suitor, a clergyman headed for the mission field, Elnathan Gridley. Tenney's male friends, deeply resentful of the new prominence of women in academies, benevolent and reform associations, and the mission field, decided to retaliate on Tenney's behalf by sending an anonymous letter to the head of the foreign missions board impugning Martha's character. Tenney further threatened Martha with revealing even more about their relationship, thereby ruining her future prospects as a missionary. The head of the board began an inquiry into the truth of the claims about Martha, and in so doing, collected letters, diaries, depositions, and firsthand witness accounts of Martha's character.
The ruin of Martha Parker's hopes provoked a resistance within evangelical ranks over womanhood, manhood, and, surprisingly, homosexuality, ultimately threatening to destroy the foreign missions enterprise.
Download and start listening now!
"[Written] with panache . . . Much of this book reads like a Jane Austen novel, with aspects that, however coincidental, may seem uncannily familiar to fans of Pride and Prejudice . . . Heyrman suggests how the episode relates to broader 19th-century debates on matters such as women’s rights, clerical celibacy, sexual double standards, and homosexuality among missionaries . . . colorful and enlightening . . . served up with novelistic flair."
— Kirkus
Quotes
-
“This account…is scholarship at its most entertaining and insightful.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“Makes for vivid and compelling history.”
— Boston Globe -
“Compulsively readable…a window onto 19th-century middle-class evangelicalism, its sexual politics, and the hothouse atmosphere of small New England towns.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“She infuses what might have been a dry recounting of facts and dates with effective levels of tension and emotion, making this not only a valuable book for scholars of this subject area but also interesting for a more general audience.”
— Library Journal -
“Reconstructs a scandal that reveals 19th-century evangelicals’ clashing and often retrograde views of women…[and] served up with novelistic flair.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
A tour de force, meticulously researched, engaging, deeply humane and compulsively readable . . . a window onto 19th-century middle-class evangelicalism, its sexual politics, and the hothouse atmosphere of small New England towns.
— Wall Street Journal -
Deliciously relevant . . . astonishing . . . elegantly written and hilariously astute, this gloriously indelicate history suggests that women’s infatuation with evangelicalism has been a bad romance indeed.
— The New York Times -
Nuanced . . . Heyrman’s empathetic connection with her 19th-century characters—even those whose actions she deplores—makes for vivid and compelling history.
— Boston Globe -
Astonishing . . . The rare spectacle of a 19th-century woman striking out into a barely opened society shines through . . . The author fully illuminates an era when evangelical Protestants represented progressivism in the United States.
— Washington Independent Review of Books -
Fascinating . . . well-researched and insightful . . . a compelling consideration of a little-known era in American religious history.
— Shelf Awareness -
Immersive . . . Heyrman’s fluid account reveals how encouraging female parishioners to use their God-given talents for holy ends benefited evangelical churches, yet led to worries about the feminization of religion and the growing ambitions of women. This richly detailed history shines.
— Publishers Weekly
Awards
-
A New York Times Notable Book of 2021
Doomed Romance Listener Reviews
Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
About Christine Leigh Heyrman
Christine Leigh Heyrman is the Robert W. and Shirley P. Grimble Professor of American History at the University of Delaware. Her works have won the Bancroft Prize and Francis Parkman Prize in History.
About Maggi-Meg Reed
Chris Andrew Ciulla, an Earphones Award–winning narrator with over 350 credits, is an on-screen actor, voice actor, host, boxing analyst, and radio personality. He has performed characters for the popular video game series Fallout and Mafia, and can be heard frequently voicing commercial campaigns. A versatile performer with over twenty-five years of experience, he produces original audio content under his own production banner, Leonardo Audio.