Sedgwick is significant for her contributions to the creation of a national literatre. She has sensitively treated women and minority groups like the Quakers, the members of the Shaker community, and the Native Americans. She became the first director of the Women's Prison Association; her writing discuss the degradation of slavery and prison life.

Primary Works

A New-England Tale, 1822; Redwood, 1824; Hope Leslie, 1827; Clarence, 1830; The Linwoods, 1835; Married or Single?, 1857.

| Top | Selected Bibliography 

Bell, Michael D. "History and Romance Convention in Catharine Sedgwick's Hope Leslie." American Quarterly 22 (1970): 213-21.

Foster, Edward H. ed. Hope Leslie. NY: Garrett, 1970.

- - -. ed. Redwood. NY: Garrett, 1970.

- - -. Catharine Maria Sedgwick. NY: Twayne, 1974.

Kelley, Mary. "A Woman Alone: Catherine Maria Sedgwick's Spinsterhood in Nineteenth Century America." New England Quarterly 51 (1978): 209-25.

Bauermeister, Erica R. "The Lamplighter, The Wide, Wide World, and Hope Leslie: The Recipes for Nineteenth Century American Women's Novels." Legacy 8.1 (Sprg 1991): 17-28.

Baumgartner, Barbara A. "Reading and Writing Bodily Violence in Nineteenth Century American Women's Writing." DAI 59.11 (May 1999): DA9913764. Degree granting institution: Northwestern U, 1998.

Castiglia, Christopher. "In Praise of Extra Vagant Women: Hope Leslie and the Captivity Romance." Legacy 6.2 (Fall 1989): 3-16.

Dean, Janet E. "Mediating Women: Gender and the Frontier in the American Imagination, 1804-1853." DAI 58.2 (Aug 1997): DA9723782. Degree granting institution: Columbia U, 1996.

Fetterley, Judith. "'My Sister! My Sister!': The Rhetoric of Catharine Sedgwick's Hope Leslie." American Literature 70.3 (Sep 1998): 491-516.

Ford, Douglas. "Inscribing the 'Impartial Observer' in Sedgwick's Hope Leslie." Legacy 14.2 (1997): 81-92.

Garvey, T. Gregory. "Risking Reprisal: Catharine Sedgwick's Hope Leslie and the Legitimation of Public Action by Women." American Transcendental Quarterly 8.4 (Dec 1994): 287-98.

Gee, Karen R. "Women, Wilderness, and Liberty in Sedgwick's Hope Leslie." Studies in the Humanities 19.2 (Dec 1992): 161-70.

Gossett, Suzanne, and Barbara A. Bardes. "Women and Political Power in the Republic: Two Early American Novels." Legacy 2.2 (Fall 1985): 13-30.

Gould, Philip. "Catharine Sedgwick's 'Recital' of the Pequot War." American Literature 66.4 (Dec 1994): 641-62.

Higonnet, Margaret R. "Comparative Reading: Catharine M. Sedgwick's Hope Leslie." Legacy 15.1 (1998): 17-22.

| Top | Karafilis, Maria. "Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie: The Crisis between Ethical Political Action and US Literary Nationalism in the New Republic." American Transcendental Quarterly 12.4 (Dec 1998): 327-44.

Krumrey, Diane. "On the Frontier of Natural Language with the Eloquent Indians: Hobomok and Hope Leslie; Selected Papers 1997 Conference, Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, March 13 15, 1997, Colorado Springs, Colorado." The Image of the Frontier in Literature, the Media, and Society. Eds. Will Wright and Steven Kaplan. Pueblo, CO: Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, University of Southern Colorado, 1997. 261-65.

Nelson, Dana. "Sympathy as Strategy in Sedgwick's Hope Leslie." The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality in Nineteenth Century America. Ed. Shirley Samuels. NY: Oxford UP, 1992. 191-202.

Peel, Sylvia. "Images of Men: Male Characters in Catherine Maria Sedgwick's 'Hope Leslie,' Caroline Kirkland's 'A New Home, Who'll Follow?', Fanny Fern's 'Ruth Hall,' and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' 'The Story of Avis'." DAI 59.7 (Jan 1999): DA9841977. Degree granting institution: Texas Tech U, 1998.

Ross, Cheri L. "(Re)Writing the Frontier Romance: Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie." College Language Association Journal 39.3 (Mar 1996): 320-40.

Singley, Carol J. "Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie: Radical Frontier Romance." Desert, Garden, Margin, Range: Literature on the American Frontier. Ed. Eric Heyne. NY: Twayne, 1992. 110-22.

Szabo, Liz. "'Pleasure in an Illusion': Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie; Selected Papers 1996 Conference, Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery. March 21 23, 1996, Colorado Springs, Colorado." The Image of the Frontier in Literature, the Media, and Society. Eds. Will Wright and Steven Kaplan. Pueblo, CO: Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, University of Southern Colorado, 1997. 275-82.

Watson, Marsha J. "Intertextuality and Early American Women Writers." DAI 58.3 (Sep 1997): DA9728606. Degree granting institution: U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 1997.

Zagarell, Sandra A. "Expanding 'America': Lydia Sigourney's Sketch of Connecticut, Catharine Sedgwick's Hope Leslie." Redefining the Political Novel: American Women Writers, 1797-1901. Ed. Sharon M. Harris. Knoxville : U of Tennessee P, 1995. 43-65.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page:

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 3: Early Nineteenth Century - Catharine Maria Sedgwick " PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/sedgwick.html (provide page date or date of your login).   

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