Trials of Intimacy: Love and Loss in the Beecher-Tilton Scandal (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226259383)

The nation's leading minister stands accused of adultery. He vehemently denies the charge but confesses to being on "the ragged edge of despair." His alleged lover is a woman of mystical faith, nearly "Catholic" in her piety. Her husband, a famous writer, sues the minister for damages. A six-month trial ends inconclusively, but it holds the nation in thrall. It produces gripping drama, scathing cartoons, and soul-searching editorials. Trials of Intimacy is the story of a scandal that shook American culture to the core in the 1870s because the key players were such vaunted moral leaders. In that respect there has never been another case like it--except The Scarlet Letter, to which it was constantly compared.

Henry Ward Beecher was pastor of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church and for many the "representative man" of mid-nineteenth century America. Elizabeth Tilton was the wife of Beecher's longtime intimate friend Theodore. His accusation of "criminal conversation" between Henry and Elizabeth confronted the American public with entirely new dilemmas about religion and intimacy, privacy and publicity, reputation and celebrity. The scandal spotlighted a series of comic and tragic loves and betrayals among these three figures, with a supporting cast that included Victoria Woodhull, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

To readers at the time, the Beecher-Tilton Scandal was an irresistible mystery. Richard Fox puts his readers into that same reverberating story, while offering it as a timeless tale of love, deception, faith, and the confounding indeterminacy of truth. Trials of Intimacy revises our conception of nineteenth-century morals and passions. And it is an American history richly resonant with present-day dramas.


Author: Richard Wightman Fox
ISBN-10: 0226259382
ISBN-13: 9780226259383
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 11/15/1999
Pages: 426
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.70lbs
Size: 9.23h x 6.17w x 1.13d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 09/01/1999 pg. 209
Publishers Weekly 09/20/1999 pg. 57
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/1999 pg. 1465
Booklist 11/01/1999 pg. 484
New York Times 01/30/2000 pg. 9
Christian Century 06/21/2000 pg. 694
Univ PR Books for Public Libry 01/01/2000 pg. 12 - Strongly Recommended