Mary Ellen Doyle's Books

Voices from the Quarters

The Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines

By: Mary Ellen Doyle

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Voices from the Quarters

The Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines

By: Mary Ellen Doyle

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title “Who will write about the way my people talk, the way my people sing?” Mary Ellen Doyle gathers and makes audible the voices arising from all of Ernest J. Gaines’s fiction to date—the indelible characters who inhabit the author’s lifelong inspirational territory: the bayous, cane fields, and plantation homes of Louisiana’s Pointe Coupee Parish. Beginning with the author’s upbringing and influences on River Lake plantation—amid the pecan trees and live oaks, the big house and the tenant quarters — this penetrating study offers close readings of Gaines’s uncollected short fiction, the early collection Bloodline, and all of his novels, including The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and the acclaimed A Lesson Before Dying. Highlighting Gaines’s skill at translating oral tales into meaningful fictional forms, Doyle advances an original theory of first-person narration (“camcorder”) and traces its use throughout his work. Gaines’s unwavering focus on the utterances of “his people” continually strengthens his artistic development—the voices of the early stories fusing with those of the later novels—until Gaines earns a unique magisterial “voice,” an implied author who is black but speaks to universals. Using critical methods as eclectic as the book’s intended audience, and drawing from on-site research and interviews with Gaines’s relatives and friends, Doyle offers a variety of perspectives on Gaines’s fiction and its world that resonates so powerfully. Those who recognize Gaines as one of the finest southern writers of the last forty years will find here an accessible instrument to hear his voices more clearly than ever.

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Page Count

276

Publisher

LSU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807129100

ISBN 13

9780807129104

Pioneer Spirit

Catherine Spalding, Sister of Charity of Nazareth

By: Mary Ellen Doyle

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Pioneer Spirit

Catherine Spalding, Sister of Charity of Nazareth

By: Mary Ellen Doyle

Mother Catherine Spalding (1793–1858) was the cofounder and first leader of one of the most significant American religious communities for women—the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth near Bardstown, Kentucky. Elected at age nineteen to lead the order, Spalding also founded several educational institutions, Louisville's first private hospital, and the first social service agency for children in Kentucky. Pioneer Spirit is the first biography of Catherine Spalding, a woman who made it her life's work to serve the citizens of the Kentucky frontier. Catherine, who lost her mother at a young age and was raised in many different homes before she was ten years old, eventually came to be raised in a colony of Catholic families. These formative years taught her independence, the value of hard work and an enduring spirit, and the importance of education, all of which would figure prominently in her later career. Spalding became increasingly interested in health care, services for orphans, and education, and her business skills and strong sense of purpose allowed her to achieve her goals with little interference from outsiders. She showed a natural gift for administration, and the scope and services of the Sisters of Charity expanded under her leadership. In the midst of this ministerial work, however, Spalding always maintained the connection of her ministry to spiritual and communal life, ascribing great importance to all three facets of her calling. Author Mary Ellen Doyle notes that in Spalding's correspondence with the Sisters, she repeatedly emphasized the heart of charity: "genuine interest in each other and sisterly affection free of personal ambition or jealousy." By the time of Catherine Spalding's death, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth extended beyond Nazareth to more than one hundred sisters in sixteen convents. Spalding's legacy of service continues today with more than six hundred members worldwide, and her story of progressive and compassionate leadership offers unique insights into the growth of a religious order and the struggles of developing America's frontier communities.

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Page Count

358

Publisher

University Press of Kentucky

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813188946

ISBN 13

9780813188942

Beyond Brutal Passions

Prostitution in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal

By: Mary Anne Poutanen

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Beyond Brutal Passions

Prostitution in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal

By: Mary Anne Poutanen

During a time of significant demographic, geographic, and social transition, many women in early nineteenth-century Montreal turned to prostitution and brothel-keeping to feed, clothe, protect, and house themselves and their families. Beyond Brutal Passions is a close study of the women who were accused of marketing sex, their economic and social susceptibilities, and the strategies they employed to resist authority and assert their own agency. Referencing newspapers, parish registers, census returns, coroners' reports, city directories, documents of Catholic and Protestant institutions, police books, and court records, Mary Anne Poutanen reveals how these women confronted limited alternatives and how they fought against established authority in the pursuit of their livelihoods. She details these women’s lives not only as prostitutes but also as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters who reconstructed the bonds of kinship and solidarity. An insightful history of prostitution, Beyond Brutal Passions explores the complicated relationships between women accused of prostitution and the society in which they lived and worked.

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Page Count

428

Publisher

McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published Date

ISBN 10

0773583904

ISBN 13

9780773583900

Catherine Spalding, SCN

A Life in Letters

By: Mary Ellen Doyle

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Catherine Spalding, SCN

A Life in Letters

By: Mary Ellen Doyle

At the age of nineteen, Catherine Spalding (1793–1858) ventured into what would become a lifetime of leadership with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (SCN)—one of the most significant American religious communities for women. As a cofounder and first superior of the order, she dedicated her life to developing and improving health care, services for orphans, and education on the early frontier. Her contributions had a lasting impact on Catholicism, the state of Kentucky, and the many people whose lives she touched. Mary Ellen Doyle supplements her definitive biography of the influential educator and humanitarian, Pioneer Spirit, with this meticulously edited and annotated volume. The collected correspondence illustrates Spalding's exemplary character and the scope of her day-to-day life as an administrator. Together, the letters reveal a new picture of Spalding's personality and drive, her insights, her trials, and her world as mother superior. The collection also gives readers a valuable glimpse of antebellum life in Kentucky and the wider south. Doyle presents the correspondence chronologically, following Spalding through key stages in her career from the founding of the SCN to her final years, as she turned to quieter cares. She provides essential historical context and information about Spalding's various correspondents, and she also analyzes the significance of letters missing from the collection. Catherine Spalding, SCN brings the SCN founder's words to a broader audience and offers readers new perspectives on both the world in which she lived and frontier faith.

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Page Count

355

Publisher

University Press of Kentucky

Published Date

ISBN 10

081316897X

ISBN 13

9780813168975

The Sympathetic Response

George Eliot's Fictional Rhetoric

By: Mary Ellen Doyle

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The Sympathetic Response

George Eliot's Fictional Rhetoric

By: Mary Ellen Doyle

S.C.N. Presents fresh insights into Eliot's fiction by concentrating on her rhetoric. The author illuminates the theory of rhetoric by showing how one writer applied it and developed her craft from her early novels to her master-piece.

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Page Count

200

Publisher

Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0838630650

ISBN 13

9780838630655

Book's by Mary Ellen Doyle

Voices from the Quarters

Voices from the Quarters

Pioneer Spirit

Pioneer Spirit

Beyond Brutal Passions

Beyond Brutal Passions

Catherine Spalding, SCN

Catherine Spalding, SCN

The Sympathetic Response

The Sympathetic Response

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