Catharine Maria Sedgwick

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Standard Name: Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
Birth Name: Catharine Maria Sedgwick
CMS was one of nineteenth-century America's most prolific and versatile women writers. She published, among other things, novellas, advice books, religious writing, over one hundred pieces of short prose, six novels, eight works for children, a travel narrative, two biographies, and a translation from Italian.
Damon-Bach, Lucinda L., and Victoria Clements, editors. “Editorial Materials”. Catharine Maria Sedgwick: Critical Perspectives, Northeastern University Press, 2003, p. various pages.
xxiv-xxv
Black and white photograph from a painting of Catharine Maria Sedgwick by Charles Ingham, 1872. She stands leaning her arm on a pedestal, wearing a velvet cloak with open neck over a simple dress. Her dark hair is pulled back and clusters in short curls around her face.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Margaret Fuller
Her father, Timothy Fuller , was also a teacher, then a lawyer and politician. A graduate of Harvard University , he served in both the Massachusetts senate and house of representatives, and he became a...
Friends, Associates Mary Russell Mitford
At the end of her life MRM was visited by John Ruskin and the US publisher James T. Fields .
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research, 1992.
116: 197
Her American literary connections were many: she corresponded with, and in some cases...
Friends, Associates Joanna Baillie
Other friends included the Hon. Judith Milbanke (whose daughter became Lady Byron ), Lady Byron herself (whom Baillie strongly supported during the long-drawn-out unpleasantness of her marriage), Henry Reeve , William Sotheby , William Harness
Friends, Associates Georgiana Chatterton
In Italy GC met one of her closest friends, Helen Selina Blackwood , Caroline Norton 's elder sister.
Dering, Edward Heneage, and Georgiana Chatterton. Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatterton. Hurst and Blackett, 1878.
26
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Back in England, she met and liked Walter Savage Landor .
Dering, Edward Heneage, and Georgiana Chatterton. Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatterton. Hurst and Blackett, 1878.
37
She moved and entertained...
Friends, Associates Fanny Fern
While FF was a well-known writer she did not participate widely in the literary world, perhaps because of the dislike of pretension that prompted her to eschew involvement in fashionable society as well as the...
Friends, Associates Anna Brownell Jameson
Besides her time in the USA with Fanny Kemble , Catherine Sedgwick , and William Channing , ABJ made the acquaintance of Frederick Marryat , whose advice on publishing matters she appreciated.
Thomas, Clara. Love and Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson. University of Toronto Press, 1967.
117-25
Friends, Associates Fanny Kemble
During this visit, FK met American writer and abolitionist Catharine Maria Sedgwick and later got to know the rest of the Sedgwick family, including Elizabeth Sedgwick . She often found a refuge at their home...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Russell Mitford
Macready praised the play, but then undermined the value of his own praise, calling it a wonderful tragedy—an extraordinary tragedy for a woman to have written.
qtd. in
Pigrome, Stella. “Mary Russell Mitford”. The Charles Lamb Bulletin, Vol.
66
, Charles Lamb Society, Apr. 1989, pp. 53-62.
57
Its popularity in London was such as to...
Literary responses Mary Russell Mitford
Our Village was praised by Christopher North (John Wilson) , Felicia Hemans , Elizabeth Barrett (who called Mitford here a sort of prose Crabbe in the sun
qtd. in
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
and Harriet Martineau . MRM was especially gratified...
Literary responses Lydia Maria Child
Her biographer says that LMC 's book sold about 6,000 copies in its first year, earned something like $2,000 in its first two, and ran to thirty-three American and twelve British editions. In response to...
Publishing Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
A New York edition of BLSB 's Women and Work appeared, with a preface by Catharine M. Sedgwick .
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press, 1985.
139
Textual Production Mary Howitt
The President's Daughters was reprinted in 1853, along with a further translation from Bremer by MH : The Homes of the New World (which Howitt was still working on during September 1852, and which appeared...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Lydia Maria Child
Here she provides cooking recipes, instructions for home remedies, and advice on household problems like cockroaches. She also offers advice to women and girls: on education, which should produce skills as well as learning, on...
Travel Fanny Kemble
It was eleven years before she left the USA after signing a separation agreement. She frequently visited Catharine Sedgwick and her family in Lenox, Massachusetts, during these years; she helped out in various ways...
Travel Fredrika Bremer
She spent just three days in London on her outward journey en route for Liverpool, because of a cholera epidemic.
A report that she was expected in Liverpool in summer 1845 seems to have been...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. A New-England Tale. Bliss and White, 1822.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. “A Sketch from Life”. Only Once, J. F. Trow, 1862.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. Hope Leslie. White, Gallaher, and White, 1827, 2 vols.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. Redwood. E. Bliss and E. White, 1824, 2 vols.
Bodichon, Barbara Leigh Smith, and Catharine Maria Sedgwick. Women and Work. C. M. Francis, 1859.