Sedgwick is significant for her contributions to the creation of a national literature. 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 writings 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.

Foster, Edward H. ed. Redwood. NY: Garrett, 1970.

Selected Bibliography 1980-Present

Bergman, Jill, and Debra Bernardi. eds. Our Sisters' Keepers: Nineteenth-Century Benevolence Literature by American Women. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2005.

Bomarito, Jessica. ed. Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion. Detroit, MI: Thomson Gale, 2004.

Damon-Bach, Lucinda L., and Victoria Clements. eds. Catharine Maria Sedwick: Critical Perspectives. Boston: Northeastern UP, 2003.

Davidson, Cathy N., and Jessamyn Hatcher. eds. No More Separate Spheres! A Next Wave American Studies Reader. Durham: Duke UP, 2002.

Eakin, Paul J. ed. American Autobiography: Retrospect and Prospect. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1991.

Elsden, Annamaria F. Roman Fever: Domesticity and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century American Women's Writing. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2004.

Harris, Sharon M. ed. Redefining the Political Novel: American Women Writers, 1797-1901. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1995.

Heyne, Eric. ed. Desert, Garden, Margin, Range: Literature on the American Frontier. NY: Twayne, 1992.

Hudock, Amy E., and Katharine Rodier. eds. American Women Prose Writers, 1820-1870. Detroit: Gale, 2001.

Kilcup, Karen L. ed. Soft Canons: American Women Writers and Masculine Tradition. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1999.

Kimbel, Bobby E., and William E. Grant. eds. American Short-Story Writers before 1880. Detroit: Gale, 1988.

Knight, Denise D. ed. Writers of the American Renaissance: An A-to-Z Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.

Machor, James L. Reading Fiction in Antebellum America: Informed Response and Reception Histories, 1820-1865. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2011.

Rifkin, Mark. When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty. NY: Oxford UP, 2011.

Samuels, Shirley. ed. The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality in Nineteenth-Century America. NY: Oxford UP, 1992.

Schmidt, Klaus H., and Fritz Fleischman. eds. Early America Re-Explored: New Readings in Colonial, Early National, and Antebellum Culture. NY: Peter Lang, 2000.

Schramer, James, and Donald Ross. eds. American Travel Writers, 1776-1864. Detroit: Gale, 1997.

Schultz, Elizabeth, and Haskell S. Springer. eds. Melville and Women. Kent, OH: Kent State UP, 2006.

Schweitzer, Ivy. Perfecting Friendship: Politics and Affiliation in Early American Literature. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2006. ("The Ethical Horizon of American Friendship in Catharine Sedgwick's Hope Leslie.")

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

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

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