Darkness and Daylight

Darkness and Daylight from Mary Jane Holmes. Bestselling and prolific American author (1825-1907). Mary Jane Holmes (April 5, 1825 - October 6, 1907) was a bestselling and prolific American author who published 39 popular novels, as well as short stories. Her first novel sold 250,000 copies; and she had total sales of 2 million books in her lifetime, second only to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Portraying domestic life in small-town and rural settings, she examined gender relationships, as well as those of class and race. She also dealt with slavery and the American Civil War with a strong sense of moral justice. Since the late 20th century she has received fresh recognition and reappraisal, although her popular work was excluded from most 19th-century literary histories. Holmes used her experiences in Kentucky for the material of several novels. In 1854 at the age of 29, she published her first novel, Tempest and Sunshine. Its central girl characters, Julia and Fanny, were reportedly modeled on the local family of John Singleton and his daughters Bettie and Susan. Darkness and Daylight is a novel by Mary J. Holmes highly recommended to read.