She was the eldest of eight children, three of whom died in infancy.
Davis, Rebecca Harding. “A Family History”. Rebecca Harding Davis: Writing Cultural Autobiography, edited by Janice Milner Lasseter and Sharon M. Harris, Vanderbilt University Press, 2001, pp. 137-48.
139
Her mother left her marital home in Big Spring (now Florence), Alabama, to give birth at her own childhood home...
Literary responses
Rebecca Harding Davis
Janice Milner Lasseter
considered that in these stories, which demonstrate her abhorrence of the institution of slavery,RHD
portrays black people as complex rather than one-dimensional—giving her work a marked difference from most renderings...
Literary responses
Rebecca Harding Davis
More recently, however, critics have expressed regret about RHD
's decision to submit to editorial control by James T. Fields
. Following Jean Fagan Yellin
, Janice Milner Lasseter
contended that the revised version of...
Literary responses
Rebecca Harding Davis
Recent commentators (for instance, Jean Pfaelzer
in her monograph and Janice Milner Lasseter
in her Dictionary of Literary Biography article) differ from each other in the attitudes to race which they find reflected in the...
Literary responses
Rebecca Harding Davis
According to Janice Milner Lasseter
, most critics agree that this is one of RHD
's weaker novels.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
239: 64
Rose, Jane Atteridge. Rebecca Harding Davis. Twayne Publishers, 1993.
82-3
Literary responses
Rebecca Harding Davis
More recently, Janice Milner Lasseter
called Bits of Gossipa compelling human story of Davis's time, which is significant for understanding the nineteenth-century American milieu.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
239: 68
Reception
Rebecca Harding Davis
Considering the content of both these articles, critic Janice Mill Lasseter
characterized RHD
as a conservative feminist insofar as she insisted that women need both personal fulfilment through the roles of wife and mother and...
Textual Features
Rebecca Harding Davis
Anne, which has been read as personally revealing, depicts a successful middle-aged businesswoman and mother who is unable to persuade her children about the reality of her essential identity. Poignant in its sense of...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Davis, Rebecca Harding. “A Family History”. Rebecca Harding Davis: Writing Cultural Autobiography, edited by Janice Milner Lasseter and Sharon M. Harris, Vanderbilt University Press, 2001, pp. 137-48.
Davis, Rebecca Harding. “Bits of Gossip”. Rebecca Harding Davis: Writing Cultural Autobiography, edited by Janice Milner Lasseter and Sharon M. Harris, Vanderbilt University Press, 2001, pp. 21-134.
Lasseter, Janice Milner, and Sharon M. Harris, editors. “Introduction”. Rebecca Harding Davis: Writing Cultural Autobiography, Vanderbilt University Press, 2001, pp. 1-19.