The Gates Ajar
Title page of first edition
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| Author | Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward |
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| Illustrator |
Jessie Curtis |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | inspirational fiction |
| Publisher | Fields, Osgood & Co. [Boston, MA] |
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Publication date
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1868 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 248 pp (first edition) |
Jessie Curtis
The Gates Ajar is an 1868 religious novel by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (later Elizabeth Phelps Ward) that was immensely popular following its publication. It was the second best-selling religious novel of the 19th century. 80,000 copies were sold in America by 1900; 100,000 were sold in England during the same time period. Sequels Beyond the Gates (1883) and The Gates Between (1887) were also bestsellers, and the three together are referred to as the author's "Spiritualist novels."
And when my angel guide went up,
He left the pearly gates ajar.
The novel is presented like a diary by its main protagonist, Mary Cabot, who mourns the death of her brother Royal. Much of the plot is presented as a dialogue about the afterlife between the two women. The novel represents heaven as being similar to Earth (but better). In contrast with traditions of Calvinism, Phelps's version of heaven is corporeal where the dead have "spiritual bodies", live in houses, raise families, and participate in various activities. The idea was not original to Phelps; at least one earlier book, the anonymous Heaven Our Home, was advertising as early as 1863 about its vision of "a Social Heaven in which there will be the most Perfect Recognition, Intercourse, Fellowship, and Bliss.
Mary Cabot of Homer, Massachusetts, has recently been notified of Royal Cabot’s death, the brother to whom she is intensely devoted. He was a soldier, "shot dead" in the American Civil War. Their parents are deceased, and Mary is unable to find sympathy and relief from anyone—acquaintances, the church deacon, or pastor. She is losing her religious faith and increasingly despairs. She eventually turns to Winifred Forceythe, her widowed aunt who fortuitously arrives from Kansas with her daughter, Faith. Over the course of their conversations, Winifred offers an inspiring image of heaven and gradually restores her niece’s faith. Winifred Forceythe dies, leaving Mary Cabot as guardian of her cousin, Faith. Mary has again found meaning in life and her outlook is joyful.
Phelps began writing The Gates Ajar in the final year of the American Civil War, inspired in part by the death of her mother, stepmother, and her fiancé who was killed at the Battle of Antietam. Phelps later claimed the book came from divine inspiration: "The angel said unto me 'Write!' and I wrote." She spent two years revising the book in her father's attic. Frustrated by the insignificant role women played during the War, she wrote the book specifically with a female audience in mind. In an autobiography, she reflected, "Into that great world of woe my little book stole forth, trembling... I do not think I thought so much about the suffering of men... but the women,—the helpless, outnumbering, unconsulted women."Emily Dickinson, according to scholar Barton Levi St. Armand, was among those who believed in a similar vision of the afterlife and found the book helpful in organizing those thoughts.
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