None of Catharine Maria Sedgwick's short story collections is in print today, but from the 1820s to the 1850s she was extremely popular. In fact, she has been called the best-known American female writer before Harriet Beecher Stowe. Although in recent years feminist scholars in particular are rediscovering Sedgwick's short stories, it would be a fair assessment to say that Sedgwick's stories have not stood the test of time. Her failure to survive as a popular writer may be explained by changes in literary tastes; nevertheless, her stories are notable for their strong moral values, believable women characters, and interesting subjects. She not only wrote historical romances but also created realistic pictures of early nineteenth-century New England society-fifty years before the rise of regionalism in America. Her best-known novel, Hope Leslie (1827), which depicts home life in colonial New England, helped to establish the domestic-novel subgenre.

Born in Stockbridge...