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The Circuit Rider:A Tale Of The Heroic Age
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- GenresHistorical Fiction
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1965
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34 people want to read
About the author
Edward Eggleston
95 books10 followersEdward Eggleston was an American historian and novelist.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 30, 2023
This is in my view the preferred kind of historical fiction. The author, not by research done 200 years or more after the fact, is familiar with various aspects of his tale. He is a Methodist minister. His home is in the area where the tale takes place. His dedication to the book reads, “To my comrades of other years—the brave and self-sacrificing men with whom I had the honour to be associated in a frontier ministry this book is inscribed.” Eggleston hasn’t exactly lived in the time chosen for his story, but he has followed just behind the circuit-riding pioneers of Methodism.
It is a raw tale, not altered in view of seeing it distributed among Sunday Schools and mission societies. The speech, some of it, is dialectical. The characters, while not often profane, are blunt in their speech. Eggleston does not hold back on describing the perception of the early Methodists by those who encountered them, or even acknowledging their faults. He does not condemn other pioneering sects they encountered, such as the Presbyterians. The sub-genre of the book is realism—realism at its best.
Because he didn’t try to dumb down, in a modern phrase, his story and make it appeal to young adults or church societies has no doubt resulted in the rampant unfamiliarity of his name today. Had he chosen, he could have flavored his stories with romanticism and attached detailed moralities to their endings. He could have been as popular as authors such as Horatio Alger, Eleanor Porter or Martha Finley.
Circuit rider and bishop Francis Asbury’s, for whom a university and seminary in Kentucky are named, appearance in the novel helps to set its timing. Hymns of John and Charles Wesley are recited, along with those of Isaac Watts. Reference is made to evangelist George Whitefield and author John Bunyan.
Eggleston refers often to the uneducated, uncultured adherents to Methodism in those early days. He was only portraying the reality inevitable for a new denomination that sought to expand its influence throughout the American frontier. The circuit riders were not known to evangelize the large cities.
The reader does not know for many a page who the title character is, if there is a title character. To be sure, the title is more a reference to a sort of biography of the occupation itself rather than to an individual circuit rider. There are two main ones whose lives we follow, almost seeing them from the time they begin to grow up. They are friends. We see their character before their conversion. We follow their love lives. I would propose that the typical person thinking about what a circuit rider is in those days would not think of ones so young as these two men. They do not grow old during the narrative. One dies and the other has just married when the book closes.
Edward Eggleston is a novelist and historian who ought to be taken more seriously today. This volume is not a “new edition.” It is a scanned, print-on-demand sort of edition. It ought to be reprinted properly, what the recording world would call ‘remastered’. In our time, we have just seen the largest, most consequential denominational split of a major denomination since the American Civil War. It happens to be the one Edward Eggleston wrote about in this novel. One wonders how many from the two sides of this split are familiar with the author and his writing. One wonders whether the keeping of the original tenets of the sect and a thorough knowledge of their history might have prevented such a monumental church split. (I am not a Methodist, just interested.)
It is a raw tale, not altered in view of seeing it distributed among Sunday Schools and mission societies. The speech, some of it, is dialectical. The characters, while not often profane, are blunt in their speech. Eggleston does not hold back on describing the perception of the early Methodists by those who encountered them, or even acknowledging their faults. He does not condemn other pioneering sects they encountered, such as the Presbyterians. The sub-genre of the book is realism—realism at its best.
Because he didn’t try to dumb down, in a modern phrase, his story and make it appeal to young adults or church societies has no doubt resulted in the rampant unfamiliarity of his name today. Had he chosen, he could have flavored his stories with romanticism and attached detailed moralities to their endings. He could have been as popular as authors such as Horatio Alger, Eleanor Porter or Martha Finley.
Circuit rider and bishop Francis Asbury’s, for whom a university and seminary in Kentucky are named, appearance in the novel helps to set its timing. Hymns of John and Charles Wesley are recited, along with those of Isaac Watts. Reference is made to evangelist George Whitefield and author John Bunyan.
Eggleston refers often to the uneducated, uncultured adherents to Methodism in those early days. He was only portraying the reality inevitable for a new denomination that sought to expand its influence throughout the American frontier. The circuit riders were not known to evangelize the large cities.
The reader does not know for many a page who the title character is, if there is a title character. To be sure, the title is more a reference to a sort of biography of the occupation itself rather than to an individual circuit rider. There are two main ones whose lives we follow, almost seeing them from the time they begin to grow up. They are friends. We see their character before their conversion. We follow their love lives. I would propose that the typical person thinking about what a circuit rider is in those days would not think of ones so young as these two men. They do not grow old during the narrative. One dies and the other has just married when the book closes.
Edward Eggleston is a novelist and historian who ought to be taken more seriously today. This volume is not a “new edition.” It is a scanned, print-on-demand sort of edition. It ought to be reprinted properly, what the recording world would call ‘remastered’. In our time, we have just seen the largest, most consequential denominational split of a major denomination since the American Civil War. It happens to be the one Edward Eggleston wrote about in this novel. One wonders how many from the two sides of this split are familiar with the author and his writing. One wonders whether the keeping of the original tenets of the sect and a thorough knowledge of their history might have prevented such a monumental church split. (I am not a Methodist, just interested.)
May 18, 2018
The Circuit Rider is less interesting than The Hoosier Schoolmaster (which I've also reviewed) because it doubles down on a couple components of that novel (Methodism, historical romance) while slimming out others (sociological attentiveness to local cultural practice, western humor). It still has some distinctive passages / episodes, they're a bit fewer and farther between.
January 8, 2025
This was an interesting look at life on the western frontier (which at that point was Ohio) in the 1770's. Life was rough and ready, and so were the Methodist circuit riders out to save the lost. If you enjoy Westerns, you may enjoy this. Also good for those of us who enjoy books presenting life in the past as lived by ordinary people.
January 19, 2022
Period novel of 1874 that brings history to vivid life
Fascinating, lively love and adventure story that sheds light on the early days of the Methodist faith and its drive to convert the 'unsaved'. A page-turning historical novel of the old school.
Fascinating, lively love and adventure story that sheds light on the early days of the Methodist faith and its drive to convert the 'unsaved'. A page-turning historical novel of the old school.
December 27, 2016
Book written in 1874 and the grammer and word usage of the time makes it a difficult read by today's standards. Read the book to gain a better understanding of the Circuit Riders life and interaction with worshippers but its more a love story and the story of two friends that both become Methodist Circuit Riders. It does reflect the disdain many had for Methodist circuit riders at this particular time in history.
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September 16, 2024wikipedia - circuit riders
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August 16, 2017Wonderful description of the lives of the Methodist Circuit Riders and old Methodism
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews