Best Companions : Letters of Eliza Middleton Fisher and her mother, Mary Hering Middleton, from Charleston, Philadelphia, and Newport, 1839-1846 [Hardcover]

Eliza Cope Harrison (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Almost 400 letters between mother and daughter draw the reader into the antebellum Southern aristocracy. The Middleton family lived on one of the largest, most opulent plantations in South Carolina. These papers moldered in a family member's file cabinet until Harrison (ed.. Philadelphia Merchant: The Diary of Thomas C. Pope), a Middleton descendant, uncovered them; she now offers them as part of USC's invaluable Women's Diaries and Letters of the South series. The letters begin in 1839, just after Eliza Middleton Fisher's marriage. Eliza writes to her mother, "Tell me everything when you write," and mother obliges. We learn the vicissitudes of daily life, from the weather to the wardrobes. We read about young Eliza's travels to mountains and to Monticello, and we get a little celebrity gossip, as when Eliza visits dramatist and soon-to-be-abolitionist Fanny Kemble. The letters afford a fascinating glimpse of the cultural life of antebellum America, as we track what Eliza read (for example, the moral tract Woman's Mission) and the operas she attended. We also follow her foibles as she learns the arts of housekeeping. But the letters are not devoted solely to the frippery of society talk. The women also talk politics Eliza, for example, voices interest in "the Texas question" (the possible annexation of Texas, and the "disastrous" possibilities for the South). This volume is a major achievement, not least because Harrison makes public a trove of documents heretofore unseen by anyone but the Middletons. This is an epistolary collection to be treasured. Illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 520 pages
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press (April 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570033757
• ISBN-13: 978-1570033759
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,807,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The cultural and social life of the North and the South, October 14, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best Companions : Letters of Eliza Middleton Fisher and her mother, Mary Hering Middleton, from Charleston, Philadelphia, and Newport, 1839-1846 (Hardcover)

Best Companions is a 532 page compendium of letters between Eliza Middleton Fisher and her mother, Mary Hering Middleton. The letters bridge Charleston, Philadelphia to Newport, through the years 1839-1846. This seven-year conversation, encompassed in some 375 letters, connect the cultural and social life of the North and the South even as other forces conspired to tear America part from within. Enhanced with an Epilogue, extentensive bibliography, and comprehensive index, Best Companions is intimately showcases the joys, sorrows, frustrations, and widespread opinions of a close mother and daughter. Best Companions is not to be missed!