Samantha Among the Brethren — Volume 5

Samantha Allen is back, and she's got opinions. Volume five of Marietta Holley's beloved satirical series finds our sharp-tongued protagonist in familiar territory: the church, where women are permitted to work ceaselessly but forbidden from having any voice in how things are run. When the meeting house faces financial collapse, Samantha rallies the women together, proving that when men fail to act, women will. But the real battle is ideological. Through hilarious exchanges with her stubbornly conventional husband Josiah, Holley skewers the absurd logic that celebrates women's labor while denying their authority. This is satire with teeth, wrapped in the warmth of genuine characters. Holley, writing as 'Josiah Allen's Wife,' was the Mark Twain of women's humor in Gilded Age America, and Samantha remains one of the funniest and most incisive female voices in 19th-century literature. For readers who loved Little Women but always wished Jo March had gotten really angry about the patriarchy.