Caroline M. Kirkland, most famous for her novel A New Home--Who'll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life (1839), edited the Union Magazine of Literature and Art, founded and taught in several girls' schools, and wrote articles on female education, slavery, and literary writing. Although many nineteenth-century women wrote both fiction and nonfiction, Kirkland's works differ from most; realism, satire, and feminism--three modes considered "inappropriate" for nineteenth-century women authors--make her writings distinctive.

Caroline Matilda Stansbury, eldest of Eliza Alexander and Samuel Stansbury's eleven children, was born on 12 January 1801 in New York City. Unlike most nineteenth-century girls, Caroline received a relatively sophisticated education; at the age of eight, she was sent to her aunt Lydia Mott's school. Later, Stansbury taught in Utica, New York, at another of her aunt's schools. While teaching, Caroline met William Kirkland, who was also an educator, and married him in 1828. Caroline and William Kirkland opened a...