Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Yankee preacher Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87) knew everybody who was anybody, and his Plymouth Church in Brooklyn was a popular tourist attraction. If he was the most famous American, he was also a polarizing figure because of the abolitionism that made him "most hated" in the antebellum South. Overachievement was in his blood: father Lyman was the last great American Puritan minister; most siblings were missionaries, educators, and scholars; and sister Harriet became the most famous woman in the English-speaking world for the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.0 Assuming Lyman's mantle, Henry distinguished himself by preaching unconditional love when most ministers prosecuted biblical literalism. Applegate well evokes Beecher's nineteenth-century milieu while making connections to the present day. Orators were celebrities then, and whereas twentieth-century evangelicals are reputedly anti-intellectual, the Beechers ardently advocated education. Adultery with his best friend's wife led to a sensational trial that irrevocably damaged Beecher's reputation. Applegate sympathetically portrays this larger-than-life figure as appealingly human. --June Sawyers Copyright 2006 Booklist

Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Now nearly forgotten, Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was an immensely famous minister, abolitionist and public intellectual whose career was rocked by allegations of adultery that made nationwide headlines. In this engaging biography, American studies scholar Applegate situates this curiously modern 19th-century figure at the focus of epochal developments in American culture. Beecher's mesmerizing oratory and fiery newspaper columns made him one of the first celebrities of the nascent mass media. His antislavery politics, though often tepid and vacillating, Applegate argues, injected a note of emotionalism into the debate that-with his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin-galvanized Northern public opinion. And by preaching a loving God instead of a wrathful one, the author contends, Beecher repudiated the dour Calvinism of his youth and made happiness and self-fulfillment, rather than sin and guilt, the centerpiece of modern Christian ideology. (The implicit moral anarchy of his creed, critics charged, evinced itself in his sexual indiscretions.) Although marred by occasionally facile psychoanalysis (Applegate describes Beecher, the seventh of 12 siblings, as a classic "middle child" personality), this assessment of Beecher is judicious and critical. Applegate gives an insightful account of a contradictory, fascinating, rather Clintonesque figure who, in many ways, was America's first liberal. (June 27) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The 2007 Pulitzer Prize jumps the gun on book award announcements, selecting the spring rather than the fall to declare its winners. The best biography nod went to Debby Applegate's The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (Doubleday. 2006. ISBN 978-0-385-51396-8. $27.95; pap. 2007. Three Leaves. 2007. ISBN 978-0-385-51397-5. $16.95). The brother of Uncle Tom's Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe was a fascinating figure-a reverend with big ideas and bold actions. He became a media celebrity through his ardent speeches and newspaper columns, was a vocal opponent of slavery, and helped change much of Christian thinking. As an iconic figure of his day, Beecher has much to teach us about our own media-driven culture and the fleeting appeal of fame. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Applegate has added a readable, balanced biography to the long list of scholarly and popular works on the Beecher family. There is something for everyone in this version. For general readers, accessible prose tells Beecher's fascinating story in an engaging, even breezy, style. For undergraduate students, ample historical context provides a solid foundation for understanding Beecher's writings and actions. Applegate excels at explaining the complexities of Calvinist theology and Civil War politics, for example, so that readers unfamiliar with such topics can better grasp the conservative, moderate, and radical positions that Beecher staked out for himself at various times and places. For American studies scholars, Applegate combs through the public and private writings of political and literary figures for their perspectives on Beecher. She also unearths new evidence from private family collections that sheds additional light on the still murky question of Beecher's sexual relations with his female parishioners. The Beecher who emerges here is neither charlatan nor saint, but a complicated intellectual and 19th-century celebrity who deserves continued attention as a representative American character. Bibliography and notes are included, but the citation system is cumbersome to use. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic levels/libraries. K. Gedge West Chester University of Pennsylvania

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Beautifully written biography of America's one best-known preacher, who ingeniously transformed the harsh Calvinism of his famous father into a nurturing, middlebrow faith attractive and accessible to a country prepared to abandon Puritan orthodoxy. If Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) is remembered at all today, it's for a notorious adultery trial near the end of his life. American historian Applegate reminds us, however, that at the height of his career, the likes of Emerson, Whitman, Lincoln and Twain each assumed upon meeting him that Beecher was the greater man. Well-grounded in New England's doctrinal theology by his father Lyman, "the last great Puritan minister in America," Henry was disciplined by the competition within his large, talented family (Harriet Beecher Stowe was his sister). After acquiring seasoning from his early pastoral postings in America's rough west, Beecher brought his dramatic, emotional religious oratory to Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights, which he transformed into a tourist attraction. As a traveling lecturer, a popular contributor to newspapers and magazines and even a novelist, he reached millions worldwide. Though a thoroughgoing member of the Establishment, he was also a moderate advocate of certain progressive views (abolition of slavery, women's suffrage); similarly, his updated version of Christianity made him seem both cutting-edge and reassuring. Beecher's fame exceeded that of all but a few men of his time, but Applegate's sensitive, finely calibrated debut suggests that had he not been Lyman's son, Henry would have chosen a role other than Moral Authority of the Gilded Age. Addicted to the rush of stardom, later to mammon, and throughout his life to the charms of the many women who were entranced by him, Beecher's eventual fall reverberated throughout the country. An exceptionally thorough and thoughtful account of a spectacular career that helped shape and reflect national preoccupations before, during and after the Civil War. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.