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Samantha at the World's Fair

Chapter 36: SWEET CICELY;
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About This Book

A wryly observant rural woman recounts her trip to an international exposition, reporting on the dazzling exhibits, odd inventions, and bustling crowds through homespun dialect and comic perspective. A string of episodic scenes—misunderstandings, practical jokes, and social encounters—sets small‑town common sense against urban spectacle, exposing pretension, commercialism, and shifting gender expectations. Humor alternates with gentle moral reflection as the narrator sketches eccentric visitors and local companions, uses irony to question notions of progress, and ultimately conveys affection for provincial values while acknowledging change.

"Will win for her a title to an honorable place among American poets."—Chicago Standard.

"Miss Holley has here more than sustained her previous high literary reputation."—Interior, Chicago.



SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN.

By "Josiah Allen's Wife." Illustrated. Square 12mo, 452 pp. Cloth, $2.50.

"It is irresistibly humorous and true."—Bishop John P. Newman.

"It is as full of meat as an egg.... Calculated to do immense good in that department of woman's rights which relates to her participation in the great work of the Church of Christ, beyond the scrubbing and papering of the meeting-house."—Ex-Judge Noah Davis.

"It abounds in mingled humor, pathos and inexorable common sense."—Will Carleton.

"It is exceedingly entertaining."—New York Observer.



SWEET CICELY;

Or, Josiah Allen as a Politician. A Fascinating Story. Square 12mo, 390 pp. Cloth, $2.00.

"The interest of the book is intense.... Never was such a defender of woman's rights, never was such an exponent of woman's wrongs! In Samantha's pithy, pointed, scornful utterances we have in very truth the expression of feelings common to most thoughtful women, well understood among them, but rarely finding voice except in confidential intercourses and for sympathetic ears. Other women besides poor Cicely, and warm-hearted, clear-headed Samantha, and 'humble' Dorlesky eat their hearts out over the injustice of laws that they have no hand in making, and can have no hand in altering, though ruin and agony are their result.... It would be impossible to find in literature anything more pitiful than this story of the struggle of a gentle-natured woman against the dangers which surround her child, and her agony as she realizes her helplessness to avert evil from her fellow-sufferers. If it were not for the strong vein of humor which lightens up the darkest passages, the interest would be too painful. But Samantha intervenes with her quaint epigrams and keen-witted analysis, and lo, a smile broadens before the tear has dried!... Alongside of the fun are genuine eloquence and profound pathos; we scarcely know which is the more delightful."—The Literary World, London, Eng.


FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

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