ton-magela

As with most of Marietta Holley's "Josiah Allen's Wife" tales, Samantha at the World's Fair comprises equal parts travelogue, feminist diatribe, Yankee dialect story, and temperance sermon. Because the book was written to capitalize on and publicize the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, there is no plot to speak of, simply the musings of a rural villager on the strange and wondrous sights that many visitors spent an entire summer taking in in full. With two exceptions (the attempt by a woman in a tight dress to ride a camel and Josiah Allen's midnight impersonation of his favorite World's Fair statue) the humor is entirely verbal. The descriptions of the grand if temporary buildings give a modern reader a good sense of the event's immense scope and inclusiveness. Unfortunately, as a whole Holley's more than 700 page book is not very interesting.

2022-11-14 18:13