Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Catharine Maria Sedgwick
-
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.
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
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...
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.
Dering, Edward Heneage, and Georgiana Chatterton. Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatterton. Hurst and Blackett, 1878.
37
She moved and entertained...
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
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...
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
Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ
returned to the United States via Montreal and Quebec City. In the USA she visited Fanny Kemble
in Philadelphia, developed a friendship with Catherine Sedgwick
, and was received in Massachusetts by...
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...
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.