The Lamplighter By Maria S Cummins

The story of Gertrude Flint, an abandoned and mistreated orphan rescued at the age of eight by Trueman Flint, a lamplighter, from her abusive guardian, Nan Grant. Gerty is lovingly raised and taught virtues and religious faith, forming her to become a moral woman. In adulthood, she is rewarded for her many tribulations by marriage to a childhood friend.

The Lamplighter is a sentimental novel written by Maria Susanna Cummins and published in 1854, and a best-selling novel of its era. Plot synopsis A female Bildungsroman, The Lamplighter tells the story of Gertrude Flint, an abandoned and mistreated orphan rescued at the age of eight by Trueman Flint, a lamplighter, from her abusive guardian, Nan Grant. Gertrude is lovingly raised and taught virtues and religious faith. She becomes a moralistic woman. In adulthood, she is rewarded for her long suffering with marriage to a childhood friend.... Maria Susanna Cummins (April 9, 1827 - October 1, 1866) was an American novelist. Maria Susanna Cummins was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on April 9, 1827. She was the daughter of Honorable David Cummins and Maria F. Kittredge, and was the eldest of four children from that marriage. The Cummins family resided in the neighborhood of Dorchester in Boston, Massachusetts. Cummins' father encouraged her to become a writer at an early age. She studied at Mrs. Charles Sedgwick's Young Ladies School in Lenox, Massachusetts. In 1854, she published the novel The Lamplighter, a sentimental book which was widely popular and which made its author well-known. One reviewer called it "one of the most original and natural narratives".Within eight weeks, it sold 40,000 copies and totaled 70,000 by the end of its first year in print.She wrote other books, including Mabel Vaughan (1857), none of which had the same success. Cummins also published in some of the popular periodicals of her day.Cummins died in Dorchester after a period of illness on October 1, 1866.

The story of Gertrude Flint, an abandoned and mistreated orphan rescued at the age of eight by Trueman Flint, a lamplighter, from her abusive guardian, Nan Grant. Gerty is lovingly raised and taught virtues and religious faith, forming her to become a moral woman. In adulthood, she is rewarded for her many tribulations by marriage to a childhood friend.

Reproduction of the original: The Lamplighter by Maria S. Cummins

The Lamplighter by Maria S. Cummins. The Lamplighter is a sentimental novel written by Maria Susanna Cummins and published in 1854, and a best-selling novel of its era. A female Bildungsroman, The Lamplighter tells the story of Gertrude Flint, an abandoned and mistreated orphan rescued at the age of eight by Trueman Flint, a lamplighter, from her abusive guardian, Nan Grant. Gertrude is lovingly raised and taught virtues and religious faith. She becomes a moralistic woman. In adulthood, she is rewarded for her long suffering with marriage to a childhood friend. The Lamplighter was Cummins's first novel and was an immediate best-seller, selling 20,000 copies in twenty days. The work sold 40,000 in eight weeks, and within five months it had sold 65,000. At the time it was second in sales only to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. It sold over 100,000 copies in Britain and was translated into multiple different languages.

Maria Susanna Cummins (1827-1866) was an American novelist, best known for her best-selling 1854 novel, The Lamplighter. The Lamplighter was Cummins first novel and it was only out-sold at the time by Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. James D. Hart (author of The Oxford Companion to American Literature) noted that The Lamplighter could provide insight into the American culture of its time: "If a student of taste wants to know the thoughts and feelings of the majority who lived during Franklin Pierce's administration, he will find more positive value in Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter or T. S. Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar-Room than he will in Thoreau's Walden - all books published in 1854." Cummin's heroine Gerty Flint inspired James Joyce's character Gerty McDowell in a portion of Ulysses generally believed to be a parody of Cummins' writing style.