John Ward, Preacher

In 1888, Margaret Deland published her first novel, John Ward, Preacher, which deals with religious and social questions after the manner of the British writer Mrs. Humphry Ward. The book stirred public opinion against its supposed irreligion, portraying the irreconcilable and destructive conflict between a Calvinist minister and his wife, who cannot accept the doctrine of eternal damnation. The fiction of 19th-century novelist Margaret Deland was greatly concerned with the particular challenges faced by the women in her era: the fight for suffrage, the public disgrace of single motherhood, and the secret shame of infidelity. A daring and original work about a woman asserting her intellectual independence, this is a lost classic that will electrify American readers.