Mary's World: Love, War & Family Ties in Nineteenth-Century Charleston

by Richard N. Côté

Book Overview

Born to affluence and opportunity in the South's Golden Age, Mary Motte Alston Pringle (1803-1884) represented the epitome of Southern white womanhood. Her husband, William, was a wealthy rice planter... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1929175191
• ISBN13: 9781929175192
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Corinthian Books
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Great history of southern aristocracy

I enjoyed the book, it's a pity they didn't follow their son's lead and stash the cash!

Delightful starter on civil war history for foreigners

Apart from the reading plaesure "Mary's World" provides, I immensly enjoyed this book for the following reasons: foreign history, in this case the American Civil War history, can be daunting for outsiders. Mary's World eases the foreigner not only into the life of the Pringle family but also into history of southern plantation life years prior to the war. This circumstance greatly facilitates the amateur's understanding of the time leading up to the war and the war itself. What I particularly appreciated was the southern view of that history. Even in Switzerland we are familiar with the northern issues of industrialism vs. agriculture (prominent geographically in Europe at that time also), the slavery issue etc. Rarely do we hear about the life and thoughts of Southerners other than the great military men. The history of Mary Pringle written by Richard Cote transports you into a Charleston household in two seconds flat. It is all so lively and easy to imagine that it is hard to put down the book. I felt I knew Mary Pringle and her children! And I felt I had never learned more about the South.

The Best and Most Personal Account of Life in the Old South

I just finished reading Mary's World last night at 2:00 A.M. I couldn't put it down. I had long searched for a book that told about the actual lives of an Antebellum family. I had bought it while in Charleston, and it was my best book buy of the year!Many other books I have read about the same topic have been good, yet they are explained as mere facts. Mary's World was indeed portrayed as if it were fiction, yet it was a true and researched account of Mary's World, an amazing glimpse into a bygone era. It was well written and very enjoyable. If I could get my hands on more books of this type, I would certainly do so. There are many books about the Old South, but none that I know of that allow such a close and personal look and feel into the real lives of those persons having lived in the years leading to, during, and after the Civil War. There is an amazing national interest in Antebellum life told through the "voices" of those having lived during these actual times - and Cote has done a great job of sharing the true stories and lives of the Alston, Pringle, Frost, Middleton, and many other families/persons in this wonderful book. I have studied old southern families for years, and I know a great deal about several families from Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans. The real life stories about which Cote writes in Mary's World are so fascinating that anyone reading the book will fall in love with Mary Pringle and Old Charleston. Mr. Cote, thanks again for a most wonderful book, and please keep similar books coming. By the way, for those of you whom read and loved Mary's World, Cote's next book about Mary Pringle's sister-in-law, Theodosia Burr Alston will be out soon.

A World of Heart

Before "Mary's World" I had not been privileged to read a meticulously-researched, scholarly work that moved along like a novel. When I was forced to put it down from time to time, it took me quite awhile to re-enter my own world, so caught up was I in a time so different from the present that I find myself, while reading, totally captivated. Mary Motte Alston Pringle may have been the last of the legendary Southern Women. Truly born to the manor and accustomed to every luxury as a young woman, she rose to challenges during and after the Civil War that would have destroyed a lesser human being. The letters that she wrote just after the war to her adult children who were scattered from California to Europe would have left me in despair if they had not held such a powerful message about the durability of the human spirit.She had no money, her beloved family home was occupied by Union soldiers and she was separated from many whom she loved, yet there is such courage in these letters that the book left me filled with inspiration. Men and women today can find much to admire and emulate in this indestructible family. "Mary's World" has a permanent place on my bookshelf and in my heart.

A Work For A Whole New Audience On A Familiar Topic

The Civil War that this Country suffered through is probably one of the more heavily documented periods in our History, and by extension the topic of many books. I believe this book is quite unique, and by its nature will be of interest to a much wider group of readers than many other books on this period of History.I have read several works on the Civil War, however I claim no extraordinary knowledge. My reading has generally been confined to the memoirs of the more notable participants, and on the events that lead to the conflict, the carnage that ensued, and the remnants that many would argue still echo to the present.This is not a book based on the life of a soldier, rather a woman who had 13 children some who were sons, and several that were lost to the war. This book is not about battles, but the results and the damage they caused on a human/familial scale, not a North versus South scale. The view is not completely without bias for these are the papers of a woman of The South, a Plantation Owner's Wife, and a woman who literally lived at the flashpoint for the war. Despite these facts, this was a woman who was well educated, thoughtful, and held ideas that would appear to be in opposition to what a reader would expect.This woman had children fighting in the war, located in The North during the war, in San Francisco, and in Europe during the war. Nothing usual about this woman, whether one considers the Family she produced, the diversity of personalities they became, or how she coped with them all while sitting atop the peak of society, and then traveling to its absolute opposite in the wake of the war.This book may appear daunting from its size, but this is not the case. The book is happily filled with an unusual number of photographs that are placed in context, not isolated in the midst of the book, forcing the reader to copy and paste their memories and pictures to the relevant passage. The book is also filled with excellent source notes befitting a work of scholarly writing.The war is a critical part of this book, but it is a part. The economics of rice growing and the methods of cultivation are explained, and I found it fascinating. The daily life well before, and well after the war is also explained and experienced. This is not a snapshot of a Family over the period of a war. This is the biography of a Family that stretches across the centuries until the Author brings you to the home on the cover that stands to this day.The material that is the basis for this book is first hand source material. This is not hundreds of pages of editorial from the Author's point of view. The records certainly must be viewed through the eyes of those who they were written by, but as I said, they often surprise.Mr. Cote has created a memorable work; he has produced a biography that can be applied to so many categories. This book is Mary's story, the story of her family that came before, and followed her. This is the story of a way of life, the events that

dispassionate, deep and well researched history

_Mary's World_ traces the life story of Mary Motte Alston Pringle, a prominent South Carolinian woman, from her youth in the early 1800s to her passing at an advanced age. Much of the story is drawn from her own writings, which are voluminous and articulate, though Côté steers clear of the trap of overquoting and invests the effort to interpret and present--just as an historian should.Most authors would be delighted to succeed in one significant way with a book--Côté succeeds in many with _Mary's_. It is dispassionate history, navigating the shoals of one of the most partisan events in US history (the Civil War) without demonizing or deifying either side. It is 'herstory', if you will, giving us a view of times past from the standpoint of a courageous woman who went from genteel wealth to genteel poverty. It is also African American history: the blacks who played integral roles in Mary's world have names, faces and attitudes, which naturally changed with society. It asks and answers deeper questions about the protagonists' motivations, ideas, beliefs and viewpoints. It makes abundantly clear that Reconstruction was an equal opportunity failure, destroying rather than redistributing wealth. Côté's style is uncluttered, perceptive and engaging. It plays no favourites and panders to no one. The notes often explain contemporary slang and add value to the main text; the index is very helpful; the bibliography is impressive.Strongly recommended as 19th-century US history, Southern history, Civil War history, women's history and/or black history. It would be of particular value for the high school or college student of US history writing an essay or looking for inspiration for one, and I look forward to more work of this calibre from the author.