Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A monumental scholarly achievement."—Joan Hedrick, author of
Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life"The definitive biography of a major figure in American literary and political history.—Richard Slotkin, author of
Gunfighter Nation"This is a magnificent book. Child’s character emerges as a model for what a woman can be."—Jane Tompkins, author of
West of Everything“Child’s was a ‘household name’ during her lifetime, Carolyn Karcher writes, . . . yet since then her works and influence have been all but ‘erased from history.’ Ms. Karcher hopes to restore that reputation and to familiarize the modern reader with Child’s writings through a literary biography based on ‘extensive quotation and detailed literary analysis.’ Ms. Karcher’s goal is an admirable one; Child’s importance and influence should be reasserted.” * New York Times Book Review *
“Karcher convincingly argues that Child deserves recognition as one of the handful of leading women intellectuals of her day: indeed, of leading intellectuals of either sex.” * London Review of Books *
“Karcher details Child’s life in a thoroughly researched manner that emphasizes Child’s own writings.” * Library Journal *
“Karcher has prodigiously researched nineteenth-century life in America to place her subject in historical context for this definitive biography.” * Publishers Weekly *
“Karcher’s biography of Child is a monumentally thorough scholarly work.” * Women's Review of Books *
“Lydia Maria Child’s rich and expansive life has finally been accorded the voluminous treatment it deserves.” * American Historical Review *
“This valuable portrait of a complex and talented woman may be most notable for indicating the extent to which she was
of—rather than ahead of—her time.” * Kirkus Reviews *
Table of ContentsIllustrations ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Chronology xix
Abbreviations xxvi
Prologue: A Passion for Books 1
1. The Author of
Hobomok 16
2.
Rebels and "Rivals": Self Portraits of a Conflicted Young Artist 38
3.
The Juvenile Miscellany: The Creation of an American Children's Literature 57
4. A Marriage of True Minds: Espousing the Indian Cause 80
5. Blighted Prospects: Indian Fiction and Domestic Reality 101
6.
The Frugal Housewife: Financial Worries and Domestic Advice 126
7. Children's Literature and Antislavery: Conservative Medium, Radical Message 151
8. "The First Woman in the Republic": An Antislavery Baptism 173
9. An Antislavery Marriage: Careers at Cross Purposes 195
10.
The Conditions of Women: Double Binds, Unresolved Conflicts 214
11. Schisms, Personal and Political 249
12.
The National Anti-Slavery Standard: Family Newspaper or Factional Organ? 267
13.
Letters from New York: The Invention of a New Literary Genre 295
14. Sexuality and Marriage in
Fact and Fiction 320
15.
The Progress of Religious Ideas: A "Pilgrimage of Pennance" 356
16.
Autumnal Leaves: Reconsecrated Partnerships, Personal and Political 384
17. The Example of John Brown 416
18. Child's Civil War 443
19. Visions of a Reconstructed America:
The Freedmen's Book and
A Romance of the Republic 487
20. A Radical Old Age 532
21.
Aspirations of the World 573
Afterword 608
Notes 617
Works of Lydia Maria Child 757
Index 773
