Harold Frederic (born Harold Henry Frederick; August 19, 1856 - October 19, 1898) was an American journalist and novelist. Frederic was born in Utica, New York, to Presbyterian parents. After his father was killed in a railroad accident when Frederic was 18 months old, the boy was raised primarily by his mother. He finished school at age fifteen, and soon began work as a photographer. For four years he was a photographic touch-up artist in his hometown and in Boston. In 1875 he began work as a proofreader for the newspaper The Utica Herald and then The Utica Daily Observer. Frederic later became a reporter. Frederic married Grace Green Williams in 1877, and they had five children together. By 1882 he was editor of the newspaper The Albany Evening Journal in the state capital. In 1884 Frederic went to live in England as London correspondent of the New York Times, and worked at this position for the rest of his life. He brought his family to London by 1889. Afterward he met Kate Lyon, who became his mistress. Frederic and Lyon established a second household, living openly together; and they had three illegitimate children. Frederic wrote several early stories, but it was not until he published Illumination (1896), better known by its American title, The Damnation of Theron Ware; followed by Gloria Mundi (1898), that his talent as a novelist was fully realized. Critic Jonathan Yardley called Damnation "a minor classic of realism". Kate Lyon was a Christian Scientist. When Frederic suffered a stroke in 1898, she tried to cure him by faith healing. 3] 4] After his death, she was tried on charges of manslaughter brought by his wife Grace Frederic, and acquitted at trial.
The Damnation of Theron Ware (published in England as Illumination) is an 1896 novel by American author Harold Frederic. The novel reveals a great deal about late 19th century provincial America, religious life, and the depressed state of intellectual and artistic culture in small towns. It is similar to Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh and Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry. It is written in a realistic style. The novel centers on the life of a Methodist pastor named Theron Ware who has recently moved to a fictional small town in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, which Frederic modeled after Utica, New York. A promising young pastor recently married, Theron has a number of experiences that cause him to begin to question the Methodist religion, his role as a minister and even the very existence of God. His moral decline (or illumination) is heightened through his dealings with Father Forbes, the town's Catholic priest; Dr. Ledsmar, a local atheist, philosopher, and man of science; and Celia Madden, a local Irish Catholic girl, a species of aesthete, with whom Theron becomes hopelessly infatuated. In the end, these three "advanced" characters find Theron a bore, and tell him so. He goes on a binge, and is saved by Brother and Sister Soulsby, common-sensical fund-raisers for Methodist congregations. Their feet are on the ground, and they pack Theron and his wife off to the new state of Washington, where-who knows?--he might end up in politics. The name "Theron Ware" was later used by author James Blish for his "villain" in the novel Black Easter. In this novel Ware brings about the death of God and the triumph of Satan. The book was adapted into a play in 1979 by a Troy University theatre professor and produced by the school's drama department....... Harold Frederic (born Harold Henry Frederick; August 19, 1856 - October 19, 1898) was an American journalist and novelist. Life and career: Frederic was born in Utica, New York, to Presbyterian parents. After his father was killed in a railroad accident when Frederic was 18 months old, the boy was raised primarily by his mother. He finished school at age fifteen, and soon began work as a photographer. For four years he was a photographic touch-up artist in his hometown and in Boston. In 1875, he began work as a proofreader for the newspaper The Utica Herald and then The Utica Daily Observer. Frederic later became a reporter. Frederic married Grace Green Williams in 1877, and they had five children together. By 1882 he was editor of the newspaper The Albany Evening Journal in the state capital. In 1884 Frederic went to live in England as London correspondent of the New York Times, and worked at this position for the rest of his life. He brought his family to London by 1889. Afterward he met Kate Lyon, who became his mistress. Frederic and Lyon established a second household, living openly together; and they had three illegitimate children. Frederic wrote several early stories, but it was not until he published Illumination (1896), better known by its American title, The Damnation of Theron Ware, followed by Gloria Mundi (1898), that his talent as a novelist was fully realized. Critic Jonathan Yardley called Damnation "a minor classic of realism". Kate Lyon was a Christian Scientist. Frederic suffered a stroke in 1898. After his death, she was tried on charges of manslaughter brought by his wife Grace Frederic, and acquitted at trial................
In the Valley (1890) is a historical novel by Anglo-American novelist Harold Frederic. It is set in the United States in the Mohawk Valley and in Albany, New York, from 1757 to 1777. Plot A Mohawk Valley Dutchman finds himself pitted against a brilliant villain, a British officer, who for a time wins the affections of the heroine who has been thrown among "Tories" and British but steadfastly loyal to her native colony, though in the end he loses her to the less-worldly though courageous and honorable Douw Mauverensen, who is historian as well as hero of the tale. The climax of the book is the Battle of Oriskany. 1] The book adheres to the New York tradition, early set down in Irving and Cooper, of respect for Dutch prudence, suspicion of British perfidy and active prejudice against all New Englanders, particularly those from Connecticut. There are also faithful black slaves and ferocious Indians................... Harold Frederic (born Harold Henry Frederick; August 19, 1856 - October 19, 1898) was an American journalist and novelist. Life and career: Frederic was born in Utica, New York, to Presbyterian parents. After his father was killed in a railroad accident when Frederic was 18 months old, the boy was raised primarily by his mother. He finished school at age fifteen, and soon began work as a photographer. For four years he was a photographic touch-up artist in his hometown and in Boston. In 1875, he began work as a proofreader for the newspaper The Utica Herald and then The Utica Daily Observer. Frederic later became a reporter. Frederic married Grace Green Williams in 1877, and they had five children together. By 1882 he was editor of the newspaper The Albany Evening Journal in the state capital. In 1884 Frederic went to live in England as London correspondent of the New York Times, and worked at this position for the rest of his life. He brought his family to London by 1889. Afterward he met Kate Lyon, who became his mistress. Frederic and Lyon established a second household, living openly together; and they had three illegitimate children. Frederic wrote several early stories, but it was not until he published Illumination (1896), better known by its American title, The Damnation of Theron Ware, followed by Gloria Mundi (1898), that his talent as a novelist was fully realized. Critic Jonathan Yardley called Damnation "a minor classic of realism". Kate Lyon was a Christian Scientist. Frederic suffered a stroke in 1898. After his death, she was tried on charges of manslaughter brought by his wife Grace Frederic, and acquitted at trial............................
Published in 1896, The Damnation of Theron Ware or Illumination is a profound psychological portrait of the spiritual undoing of a guileless Methodist minister who is taken in by a rural townspeople’s various progressive ideas, from liberalism to bohemianism, only to be spurned by them for being too conventional. Described by Everett Carter as “among the four or five best novels written by an American during the nineteenth century,” the novel, as Joyce Carol Oates writes in her Introduction, has “shrewd, disturbing insights into the human pysche.” This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the text of the authoritative Harold Frederic Edition.
This Faustian tale of the spiritual disintegration of a young minister, written in the 1890s, deals subtly and powerfully with the impact of science on innocence and the collective despair that marked the transition into the modern age. In its realism, The Damnation of Theron Ware foreshadows Howells; in its conscious imagery it prefigures Norris, Crane, Henry James, and the "symbolic realism" of the twentieth century. Its author, Harold Frederic, internationally famous as London correspondent for the New York Times, wrote the novel two years before his death.
Harold Frederic was for a long time known primarily as a writer of New York regional fiction and historical novels. His most outstanding and influential novel, The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896) represents the first extended narrative in US literature of Irish-Catholic entry into American life. In 1995, a year short of that novel’s centenary, Joyce Carol Oates wrote: “WHAT a wonderful novel is The Damnation of Theron Ware.” Though raised in a German-American, Methodist environment in the Mohawk Valley of New York state, Frederic became intrigued with Ireland’s people, politics, and history when post-Famine Irish began arriving in his hometown of Utica in the 1860s and 1870s.The Martyrdom of Mave and other Irish Stories gathers for the first time all of the Irish work Harold Frederic completed in his lifetime. He planned more, but died of a stroke in his early forties, in England, where he was employed as The New York Times London Correspondent. He had earlier written his publisher that he had been “toiling for years” on the archeology of the Iveagha (present Mizen) Peninsula in Cork, and that the projected book of historical fiction underway would be unique. The Martyrdom of Maev and Other Irish Stories brings together the four sixteenth-century stories that Frederic finished and published in magazines in 1895–96, and two of his stories set in the west of Ireland of the second-half of the nineteenth century.Taken together the stories track the ramifications of the Elizabethan invasions as they extend to the famine, evictions, and humiliations still plaguing the country just before the rise of Parnell. The dramatic title story involves young romance caught in the political unrest that begot the Land-League and portrays as well the adamant, menacing, sexual prohibitions prevailing in the rural Ireland of the late nineteenth century. Others portray life within the remote Gaelic clans of late medieval Ireland. All the stories reveal Frederic’s brilliant prose talent—“The Path of Murtogh,” for example, a starkly primitive revenge tale, is as dark and shocking as anything by Edgar Allen Poe.For those who like Harold Frederic’s fiction, or who love dramatic tales set in Ireland, this collection makes for compelling reading.
Harold Frederic's "The Damnation of Theron Ware" explores the spiritual and intellectual crisis of a young Methodist minister grappling with a rapidly changing world. Thrust into a new parish, Theron Ware encounters ideas and individuals that challenge his deeply held beliefs, leading to a profound loss of faith. Set against a backdrop of social change and religious conflict, the novel examines the complexities of pastoral life and the allure of intellectual and personal freedom. This meticulously prepared edition offers readers a window into a pivotal moment in American religious history, capturing the timeless struggle between tradition and modernity. "The Damnation of Theron Ware" remains a powerful and thought-provoking exploration of faith, doubt, and the search for meaning in a world undergoing dramatic transformation.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
