Winthrop and Elizabeth, the principal characters, embody noble virtue and demonstrate the duties of Christian life and character. As the author once put it, "He who serves God with what costs him nothing, will do very little service, you may depend on it." This is Volume I of the work. Susan Bogert Warner was an American author of religious fiction, children's fiction, and theologigical works. Writing as "Elizabeth Wetherall," she wrote over thirty novels. Her first, The Wide, Wide World, was most popular, and was translated into French, German, and Dutch. She also wrote with her younger sister Anna Bartlett Warner, and the sisters wrote Christian songs. The Warners could trace their ancestry to the Pilgims. Their father, Henry Warner, was a successful lawyer who lost most of his fortune in the Panic of 1837. The sisters turned to writing to earn money in 1849.

Author Biography

Susan Bogert Warner, pen name Elizabeth Wetherell (1819 - 1885), was an American evangelical writer of religious fiction, children's fiction and theological works. She is best remembered for The Wide, Wide World. Her other works include Queechy, The Hills of Shatemuck, Melbourne House, Daisy, Walks from Eden, House of Israel, What She Could, Opportunities and House in Town. Warner and her sister, Anna, wrote a series of semi-religious novels which had extraordinary sale, including Say and Seal, Christmas Stocking, Books of Blessing, 8 vols., The Law and the Testimony. She wrote, under the name of "Elizabeth Wetherell," thirty novels, many of which went into multiple editions. However, her first novel, The Wide, Wide World (1850), was the most popular. It was translated into several other languages, including French, German and Dutch. Other than Uncle Tom's Cabin, it was perhaps the most widely circulated story of American authorship. Other works include Queechy (1852), The Law and the Testimony, (1853), The Hills of the Shatemuc, (1856), The Old Helmet (1863) and Melbourne House (1864). In the nineteenth century, critics admired the depictions of rural American life in her early novels. American reviewers also praised Warner's Christian and moral teachings, while London reviewers tended not to favor her didacticism. In the later twentieth century, feminist critics rediscovered The Wide, Wide World, discussing it as a quintessential domestic novel and focusing on analyzing its portrayal of gender dynamics.