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Catharine Maria SedgwickReviews of Principal Works |
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Reviews for the following principal works, listed in chronological order, are included on this page:
A New-England Tale; or, Sketches of New-England Character and Manners (1822)
"An historian of this sort, is the author of the New-England Tale, whomsoever he or she may be; a person of fine feelings, and of fine observation, skilled in interpreting motives of action, well acquainted with that true, moral philosophy, which has ascertained much of the natural influences of habit, example, and education upon the formation of character, and with this knowledge, posessing [sic] that delicacy of discernment, which produces felicity of manner in literary composition, and is, in fact, a combination of generous sentiments, wide intelligence, and enlightened taste; and which, when applied to literature, communicates whatever it perceives or enjoys with a gracefulness, sensibility, and simplicity, that vanity, mediocrity, and self-assumption, never can attain. The New-England Tale is prefaced by a modest declaration that its limited and simple aim is to give a descriptive sketch of some prevailing characteristics of New-England; and this is done in the succeeding pages, so as to afforded a continued interest, and a lively pleasure to the reader, and to demand, as an act of justice, (so we think,) sincere commendation from the candid and the rational. Surely no debt which opinion can pay, is rendered with more satisfaction by the debtor, than the honest tribute of praise, accorded by one who has been regaled by a beautiful literary production to him who has bestowed it."
--A Review of "A New-England Tale; or Sketches of New-England Character and Manners," in The Literary and Scientific Repository, Vol. IV, No. 8, May, 1822, 336-70.
"[A New-England Tale] is on the whole a favorable specimen of American talent and feeling. Some objections have been made in America to its religious character, but we do not see any good grounds for such imputations. Every character in the tale, indeed, seems to possess distinct notions on religious subjects; but the author has granted a wise toleration to all of them…"
--A review of "A New-England Tale," in The Monthly Review, London, Vol. CI, May, 1823, 105.
"The literary character of [Redwood] is highly respectable, as all would expect it to be who are acquainted with the previous efforts of the author. Common fame attributes these works—Redwood and the New England Tale—to a lady; if this be so, we can only say we think it surprising,—not that their pages should exhibit much eloquence and bright imagination, but that the style should be so singularly correct, and that its excellence should be so well sustained."
--A review of "Redwood; a Tale," in The United States Literary Gazette, Vol. I, No. 1, April 1, 1824, 101-02.
"Parts are written with deep pathos; others display no inconsiderable share of comic power. There is much beautiful and striking description, but it is never so drawn out as to be tiresome, nor introduced so as to interrupt the interest of the story. It is evident, that the author has formed to herself an exalted and severe standard of virtue and morals, but this does not prevent great indulgence to human error, and compassion for human infirmity, and the utmost good nature and allowance to those, whose speculations on abstract subjects have led them to different results from her own. The qualities have enumerated are all delightfully chastened and regulated, by great good sense and sober practical wisdom, and the whole is given us through the medium of a style perspicuous and elegant."
--[William Cullen Bryant], in a review of "Redwood, a Tale," in The North American Review, Vol. XX, No. 47, April, 1825, 245-72.
"Redwood has entertained us very much. I am so much flattered by the manner in which my writings are alluded to in this book, that I can hardly suppose I am an unprejudiced judge, but it appears to me a work of superior talent, far greater than even The New-England Tale gave me reason to expect. The character of Aunt Deborah is first rate—in Scot’s best manner, yet not an imitation of Scott. It is to America what Scott’s characters are to Scotland, valuable as original pictures, with enough of individual peculiarity to be interesting, and to five the feeling of reality and life as portraits, with sufficient also of general characteristics to five them the philosophical merit of portraying a class."
--Maria Edgeworth, in a letter in May, 1825, in Life and Letters of Catharine M. Sedgwick, edited by Mary E. Dewey, 169. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1871.
Hope Leslie; or, Early Times in the Massachusetts (1827)
"At present, the aim of all, who write for the imagination, is to produce an effect. The author cares not what established rules he violates, in making his book, if, by so doing, he can create a sensation in his readers. This mania does not seem to have touched our authoress. Her story [Hope Leslie] presents a regular account of well regulated people, who figure only in still life. We think she has done wisely, in thus treating the single-minded, stern, religious, and noble character of our puritan ancestors."
--A Review of "Hope Leslie; or, Early Times in the Massachusetts," in The Western Monthly Review, Vol. I, No. 5, September, 1827, 289-95.
"Hope Leslie is the last of [Catharine Sedgwick’s] three larger works, and, in our judgment, the best. It bears the lineaments of the two others, so far as to entitle them to claim a family resemblance to it; but it is written with an easier, freer spirit than the others; its chain of beauty is less frequently interrupted; it contains a greater number of prominent characters; its style is more matured. In the whole three, however, there is the same purity and delicacy; the same generous, lofty sentiment; the same deep and solemn breathings of religion without parade, and of piety without cant or censoriousness; the same love of the grand and the lovely in nature, together with the same power so to express that love as to waken it up ardently, devotionally in others; the same occasional touches of merry with and playful satire; the same glowing fancy; and, spread through all, and regulating all, the same good sense, leading to a right apprehension of human life and human motives, restraining genius from extravagance, giving an air of reality to the narrative, and securing our constant respect for the narrator."
"[Sedgwick] has had the industry to study the early history of New England, the costume and carriage, the spirit and temper of the settlers and aboriginal inhabitants, and the talent to combine the results of her researches with the embellishments of her own resources, and present to us the whole, a beautiful work, to verify our theories, the enliven our ancestral attachments, to delight, instruct, and improve us."
--[F.W.P. Greenwood,] in a review of "Hope Leslie; or, Early Times in Massachusetts," in The North American Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 59, April, 1828, 403-20.
Clarence; or, a Tale of Our Own Times (1830)
"We know of nothing for which [Sedgwick] is more remarkable, than her nice and discriminating habits of observation, and that fine tact, which with the directness of instinct, seizes upon what is important for the description of men and things, and rejects what is superfluous. She has an ‘eye practised like a blind man’s touch,’ and she can distinguish instantly those minute shades which are so imperceptibly blended in nature as to seem but one color to common observers…Her style is perfectly feminine, full of a certain indescribable gracefulness and ease, arising from a fine perception of beauty and an inborn delicacy or taste, which seem always to select the best words, and to put them in their right places. The letters in Clarence, we think, are very fine specimens of epistolary style, easy, graceful, and spirited, equally remote from formal stiffness and slipshod carelessness."
--[W. Hillard,] in a review of "Clarence; or, A Tale of Our Own Times," in The North American Review, Vol. XXXII, No. 70, January, 1831, 73-95.
"[We] see in all her works, and especially in [Home], the marks of a true genius for commencing a literature for the mass of the American people which shall bring up their moral tone to the spirit of their institutions. Her mind appreciates the peculiar dignity of republicanism, and her heart rejoices in its enacted poetry…In the story Home Miss Sedgwick gives herself more scope for direct moral inculation; and we prefer this form…to that of the more technical novel, for we are sure she never can fall into a bald didactic. Her works are not architectures of stone, and wood, and other dead material; a style of writing adapted to guide other ends. Her productions grow up like the trees and the flowers; and if the forms are not strictly everlasting, yet they live, (the former a long time,) and the most transient of the latter leave a deathless perfume to those who will extract their essence."
--"The Novels of Miss Sedgwick," in The American Monthly Magazine, Vol. VII, January, 1836, 15-25.
The Linwoods; or, "Sixty Years Since" in America (1835)
"Miss Sedgwick is one among of few American writers who have risen by merely their own intrinsic talents, and without the a priori aid of foreign opinion and puffery, to any exalted rank in the estimation of our countrymen. She is at the same time fully deserving of all the popularity she has attained. By those who are most fastidious in matters of literary criticism, the author of Hope Leslie is the most ardently admired, and we are acquainted with few persons of sound and accurate discrimination who would hesitate in placing her upon a level with the best of our native novelists. Of American female writers we must consider her the first…We think The Linwoods superior to Hope Leslie, and superior to Redwood. It is full of deep natural interest, rivetting attention without undue or artificial means for attaining that end. It contains nothing forced, or in any degree exaggerated. Its prevailing features are equability, ease, perfect accuracy and purity of style, a manner never at outrance with the subject matter, pathos, and verisimilitude."
--[Edgar Allen Poe,] "The Linwoods," in The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II, No. 8, December, 1835, 57-9.
"We think [The Linwoods] the most agreeable that Miss Sedgwick has yet published. It is written throughout with the same good taste and quiet unpretending power, which characterize all her productions, and is superior to most of them in the variety of the characters brought into action and the interest of the fable. It also possesses the great additional attraction, that it carries us back to the period of the revolutionary war, the heroic age of our country, which, although only sixty years distant, begins already to wear in the eyes of the degenerate money-making men of the present times, a poetical, we had almost said fabulous aspect, and consequently offers the finest scenes and materials for romance…There are some appearances in the present state of learning, which seem to show that the ladies are taking the department of novel-writing into their own hands, and if they would all manage it with the ability, taste and discretion of our author, we cannot say that we should deeply regret the revolution."
--A review of "The Linwoods; or, Sixty Years Since in America," in The North American Review, Vol. XLII, No. 90, January, 1836, 160-95.
"We refer to the volume of Tales and Sketches for the purpose of mentioning that it contains a dialogue, perhaps the most beautiful of the author’s single pieces, on "Old Maids." We have never before happened to see the subject expressly treated of in the right spirit…and it is remarkable that the first essay on this condition of modern human life should reach us from a country where the condition is supposed to be almost unknown…The truth of the pictures Miss Sedgwick gives in her Essay is manifest, and the stories themselves are touching; but there is something higher than this—a moral dignity, united with a mournful pathos, which raises this piece above all the many beautiful expressions of individual opinion and feeling which are scattered through her novels."
--[Harriet Martineau,] "Miss Sedgwick’s Works," in The London and Westminster Review, Vol. VI, No. 1, October, 1837-January, 1838, 42-65.
The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man (1836)
"Here, no achievement startles, as incredible or strange; no good act, as improbably; no tenor of life, as impracticable; no speech even, as unnaturally wise, or eloquent. Any heart, not pitiably depraved—any sound mind, reasonably conversant with the world—will feel and know that all is practicable; will recognize every thing which happens, or is done, or said—as consistent with experience, or with observation. The sagest thoughts appear (and are) mere, plain common-sense: The most pathetic scenes are evident transcripts of every-day life: the most moving and beautiful language comes from people whom it so perfectly suits, that they seem, while uttering it, to stand visible before us, in their work-day clothes. To have been thus, as it were, common-place, and yet have made a story to so much good sense and such enchaining interest,—is among the highest triumphs of talent."
--"Miss Sedgwick," in The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. III, No. 4, April, 1837, 331-34.
Live and Let Live; or, Domestic Service Illustrated (1837)
"Miss Sedgwick pursues her design of instructing and entertaining the humbler classes of our citizens, and her aim and execution are both to be commended….While these are taught the advantages of piety, integrity, and industry, the more favoured few are instructed in the equally important lessons of humanity, charity, and economy. High and low, rich and poor, may peruse the sketches of the distinguished authoress with like advantage."
--A review of "Live and Let Live," in American Quarterly Review, Vol. XXII, No. XLIII, September, 1837, 254-56.
Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (1841)
"In our author’s account of the manners of English society there is much shrewd observation and accurate pencilling. She writes in a spirit perfectly friendly, does full justice to whatever excellencies she noted, yet detects some blemishes to which our self-esteem renders us insensible. One of the chief advantages attending the perusal of such a work as the present is, the aspect under which we are assisted to look at our own habits and manners, the general conditions of our society, and the points of attraction and repulsion which our character presents to foreigners. It is doubtless somewhat mortifying to our national vanity to learn that we are not quite perfect; yet it becomes us to be grateful to the instructress, who, by wise counsels conceived in much kindness, puts the means of self-improvement within our reach….We take leave of Miss Sedgwick with the most hearty goodwill, and with a sincere desire that all our tourists, whether American or English, may imitate the spirit in which she has related to her ‘kindred at home’ what she saw and heard in the Old World."
--A review of "Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home," in The Eclectic Review, n.s. Vol. X, September, 1841, 265-77.
"…although she provided each of her heroines with a suitable husband, she wrote Married or Single? to show that marriage was not essential for the happiness of every woman—an opinion which was by no means universally accepted when the novel was published..."
--Edward Halsey Foster, in Catharine Maria Sedgwick, v-vi. New York: Twayne, 1974.
"Married or Single?…has a story of a runaway slave. This time it is a woman, Violet, the wife of a freeman…Violet says that the women of the South feel the curse of slavery as keenly as the slaves themselves and much more than the Abolitionists do, and that some day they may shake it off. Miss Sedgwick implies that the trouble seems to be they do not know where to make a beginning."
"[Miss Sedgwick] does not believe…that a woman has no rights, or that she should occupy only a secondary place. A dialogue which takes place between two young men in Married or Single? expresses Miss Sedgwick’s view of this. One of these young men, Sidell, remarks: ‘I am for women using the faculties Heaven has bestowed on them,’ and the second responds, ‘There’s sense in what you say, Sidell, but heaven defend us from Women’s Rights women!’ Sidell replies, ‘Amen and amen to that.’ The injustice of a husband’s appropriation and use of his wife’s property to pay his private debts, seemed most unjust to Miss Sedgwick."
"As to Miss Sedgwick’s place in the literature of her period, she may certainly head the list of women writers, and in the group of novelists she should give place to Cooper and Hawthorne only. She wrote for all ages—children and adults—she belonged to her period, she understood its needs, and she sympathized with its weaknesses. Her love for her fellow-beings was ardent and deep and it was her sincere desire to be of genuine aid to them that influenced her choice of the didactic tale at the very height of her success with the romantic novel."
--All quotes from Sister Mary Michael Welsh, O.P., in Catharine Maria Sedgwick: Her Position in the Literature and Thought of Her Time Up to 1860, 130-45. Washington: The Catholic University of America, 1937.
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