The Minister's Wooing

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Set in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, this domestic comedy explores themes of slavery, religion, and gender roles. Mary Scudder, living with her widowed mother and boarder Samuel Hopkins, a Calvinist theologian, faces a love dilemma. She is devoted to the skeptical James Marvyn, but her mother disapproves. After James is thought to be drowned, Mary is convinced to accept an engagement with Dr. Hopkins, leading to a complex interplay of faith, love, and social expectations in early America.