written at the request of the National
Temperance Society and issued for their press.

_13. Stepping Heavenward. 1869._

Some interesting details respecting this work have been given already.
Its circulation has been very large, both at home and abroad; far
greater than that of any other of Mrs. Prentiss' books. More than 67,000
copies of it have been sold in this country; while in England it was
issued by several houses, and tens of thousands of copies have been
sold there, in Canada, in Australia, and in other parts of the British
dominions.

Among the English houses that republished _Stepping Heavenward_, were
James Nisbet & Co.; Ward, Lock & Co.; Frederick Warne & Co.; Thomas
Nelson & Sons, London and Edinburgh; Milner & Co.; Weldon & Co. An
edition by the last-named house, neatly printed and intended specially
for circulation in Canada and Australia, as well as at home, was sold at
fivepence, so that the very poorest could buy it. No accurate estimate
can be formed of the number of copies circulated in Great Britain and
its dependencies, but it must have been enormous. It was also issued at
Leipsic, by Tauchnitz, in his famous "Collection of British Authors."
The German translation has already passed into a fourth edition--a
remarkable proof of its popularity. In the preface to this edition Miss
Morgenstern, the translator, says: "So moege sie denn hinausziehen in die
Welt, diese vierte Auflage, moege wiederum aufklopfen an die Stuben
und Herzenthueren, der deutschen Lesewelt, und nachdem ihr aufgethan,
hineintragen in die Stuben und Herzen, was ihre Vorgaengerinnen
hineintrugen;--Freude und Rath und Trost." Nowhere has the work won
higher, or more discriminating, praise than in Germany. The following
extract from one of the critical notices of it may serve as an instance:

In Form von Tagebuch--Aufzeichnungen, somit Selbstbekenntnissen,
wird uns das Leben einer Frau erzaelt, welche--ohne andere _aeussere_
Schickungen freudiger und trueber Art, als sie in _jedem_ Leben
vorzukommen pflegen--aus einem zwar gutartigen und wohlbegabten aber
Susserst reizbaren und leidenshaftlich erregten Muedchen zu einer
gelaeuterten Juengerin des Herrn heranreift. Was aber dies Buch zu einem
wahren Kleinod macht, das ish nicht die ueberaus wahre und tiefe Analyse
jener menschlichen Suende, Suendenschwachheit und Eitelkeit, die sich auch
in die froemmsten Regungen einuschleichen sucht, sondern die Angabe des
wahren Heilmittels. D