BOOK DESCRIPTION
Born to affluence and opportunity in the South's Golden Age, Mary Motte
Alston Pringle (1803-1884) of Charleston represented the epitome of Southern
white womanhood. Her husband was a wealthy rice planter who owned four
plantations and 337 slaves. Her thirteen children included two Harvard
scholars, seven world travelers, a U.S. Navy war hero, six Confederate
soldiers, one possible Union collaborator, a Confederate firebrand trapped
in the North, an expatriate bon vivant in France, and two California pioneers.
How Mary, William, their children, and slaves lived before the Civil War,
clung desperately to life in the eye of the maelstrom, and coped -- or
failed to cope -- with its bewildering aftermath is the story of this
book.
STORY ANGLES
- What were the challenges faced by women in Southern Victorian Society?
- What were the challenges faced by slaves in a wealthy slaveowner's
household?
- Mary Pringle's first dilemma: can devout Christians justify slavery?
- Mary Pringle's second dilemma: did God fail her and the Confederate
cause?
- The agonizing choices forced by war: the dilemmas of Julius and Motte
Pringle
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
- What led you to write Mary's World?
- How did you gain access to the 600 pages of letters upon which Mary's
World is based?
- Mary's World took nearly five years to research and write. What justified
such a large commitment of time and energy?
- What were Mary Pringle's special qualities?
- How did Mary Pringle gain her formidable education in a time when
women usually weren't educated past eighth grade?
- Did the Pringles know that the Civil War was coming?
- The Pringles owned 337 slaves. Why did the Pringles own so many, and
how were they employed?
- How did the Pringles treat their slaves?
- How, as a devout Christian, did Mary Pringle justify being a slaveowner?
- How did the Pringles cope with the loss of their money and slaves?
- How did the Pringles' slaves cope with their new freedom?
- How did the relations between the Pringles and their former slaves
change after the end of the Civil War?
- Other than Mary Pringle herself, who was your favorite character in
the book?
PHOTOGRAPHS AND IMAGES
PUBLISHING FACTS
- Genre: Nonfiction: biography (women) / Civil War.
- Author: Richard N. Côté, 1945-.
- Book publication date: November 2000. Fifth book printing: February
2003.
- CD publication date: September 2003.
- Trade hardcover edition: ISBN 1-929175-19-1. 6" x 9", Smyth-sewn signatures,
acid-free, library binding, printed endsheets, full color dust jacket,
480 pp., 88 illustrations, maps, extensive bibliography, appendices,
and subject / name index. $29.95.
- Trade softcover edition: ISBN 1-929175-04-3. 6" x 9", Smyth-sewn signatures,
acid-free, full color adhesive cover, 480 pp., 88 illustrations, maps,
extensive bibliography, appendices, and subject / name index. $24.95.
- Audiobook CD edition: ISBN 1-929175-38-8. 8 CDs boxed in slipcase.
Run time: approximately 11 hours. $39.95.
- LCCN: 00-103324.
- Publisher: Corinthian Books, P.O. Box 1898, Mt. Pleasant, SC 29465-1898
USA.
- Trade distributors: Ingram Book Company and Baker & Taylor.
- Bookstore availability: Mary's World may be ordered through any independent
or chain bookstore in the U.S. and Canada or direct from the publisher.
- Publisher's contact: editor@corinthianbooks.com
/ (843) 881-6080 / Fax: (843) 278-8456 .
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