Catharine Maria Sedgwick's works were ranked in her time with those of her contemporaries James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving. Indeed, her lasting legacy is that, like Cooper, she brought the culture and flavor of an American region--in this case, New England--to life in the pages of her novels and short stories. Yet, she is also known for her popularity during her lifetime and her neglect following her death. While scholars have long celebrated writers such as Cooper, Irving, and William Cullen Bryant as among the founding authors of American literature, women writers such as Catharine Maria Sedgwick, who were as popular and prolific as their male contemporaries, have been ignored--their works perceived as lacking any literary merit. But there is renewed interest in Sedgwick's works as critiques of her society, expositions on morality and social ills, and the perspective of a woman living in a society that...