Published at the end of 1850, The Wide, Wide World by Susan Warner went through fourteen editions in two years, and may ultimately have been as popular as Uncle Tom's Cabin with 19th century American readers. The novel's central character, Ellen Montgomery, is about the same age as Little Eva, but her story resembles Uncle Tom's. At its beginning she is driven by circumstance from her home and mother. In the course of her pilgrimage through the wide world, she learns to submit her will, and so through suffering she is made pure. She is not so much moving upward to heaven, though, as toward the status of refined Christian lady. Unlike Tom's, her story doesn't end with death, but on the verge of adulthood and marriage. The five chapters included here are among the many that focus on her loss of home and her education through exile and suffering.

[text:] The Wide, Wide World, by "Elizabeth Wetherell" [pseud. for Susan Warner] (New York: George P. Putnam, 1851)

[illustrations from:] The Wide, Wide World . . . New Edition, illustrated by Frederick Dielman (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1892)

I. Breaking the News II. Gives Sorrow to the Winds III. The Worth of a Finger-Ring IV. The Bitter-Sweet of Life V. A Peep into the Wide World VI. Night and Morning VII. "Strangers Walk as Friends" VIII. Leaves Us in the Street IX. The Little Queen in the Arm-Chair X. Mud -- And What Came of It XI. Running Away with the Brook XII. Splitters XIII. Hope Deferred XIV. Work Not Deferred XV. Mother Earth Rather than Aunt Fortune XVI. Counsel, Cakes, and Captain Perry XVII. Difficulty of Doing Right XVIII. Loses Care on the Cat's Back XIX. Showing that in Some Circumstances White is Black XX. Headsick and Heartsick XXI. Footsteps of Angels XXII. Shows How Mr. Van Brunt Could Be Sharp upon Some Things XXIII. How Miss Fortune Went Out and Pleasure Came In XXIV. Sweeping and Dusting XXV. Showing What a Noise a Bee Can Make When It Gets into the House XXVI. Sundry Things Round a Pot of Chocolate XXVII. The Jingling of Sleigh-Bells XXVIII. Scraps -- or Morocco and Talk XXIX. Stockings, to Which the "Bas Bleu" Was Nothing XXX. Sunday at Ventnor XXXI. Flowers and Thorns XXXII. The Bank-Note and George Washington XXXIII. A Gathering Cloud in the Spring Weather XXXIV. The Cloud Overhead XXXV. This "Working-Day World" XXXVI. The Brownie XXXVII. Timothy and His Master XXXVIII. Wherein the Black Prince Arrives Opportunely XXXIX. Halcyon Days XL. "Prodigious!" XLI. "The Clouds Return After the Rain" XLII. One Less in the Wide, Wide World XLIII. Those That Were Left XLIV. The Little Spirit That Haunted the Big House XLV. The Guardian Angel XLVI. "Something Turns Up" XLVII. The Wide World Grows Wider XLVIII. How Old Friends Were Invested with the Regalia XLIX. Thought is Free L. Trials Without LI. Trials Within LII. "Thou!"