Marietta Holley (1836 – 1926), was an American humorist who used satire to comment on U.S. society and politics. Holley's writing was frequently compared to that of Mark Twain and Edgar Nye. In her lifetime, Marietta Holley's popularity rivaled that of Twain. She wss the inventor of the first female comic protagonist of significance in American literature, Holley published twenty-four books between 1873 and 1914. Prior to Holley's work, American humorists had been primarily male, in the tradition of the "literary comedians" and of Down East and southwestern humor. Two women—Ann Stephens and Frances Whitcher—had preceded Holley as humorists, and in developing her own literary manner Holley drew upon their techniques and subject matter as well as those of masculine traditions. This volume, the first in a series of "Samantha"novels, established the characters of Samantha Smith Allen, her foolish husband Josiah Allen, and the spinster Betsey Bobbet. In this work, Holley adopted the pattern that dominated the remaining books: Samantha is presented with a problem that requires her to travel outside the confines of rural Jonesville; she takes with her a rustic sensibility and common sense that points out the absurdity of much of life in eastern America, especially politics and genteel society. Seven of Holley's novels were commissioned books about places or events as they might be viewed through Samantha's spectacles. Ironically, Holley rarely traveled, writing most of these books entirely from maps and guidebooks. She barely left the precincts of her farm home until her first trip when she was forty-five years old, preferring instead to live quietly among the people of her county. She led a circumscribed and singular life, avoiding publicity and glamor. Settled in a mansion built to replace her father's farmhouse, she lived quietly until her death at nearly ninety years.
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