SOURCE: “The Art of Caroline Kirkland: The Structure of A New Home—Who'll Follow?,”Midwestern Miscellany, Vol. 3, October, 1974, pp. 11-17.

In the following essay, Bray presents a detailed analysis of the structure of A New Home, arguing that if the work is to be worthy of the importance “occasionally attributed to it, then the reasons for this importance ought to be specified as carefully as possible.”

In the myriad game of literary status, at least as it is played with American literature, there is a certain ploy of categorization which results in a few books' being designated “minor classics.” Now the one thing that can surely be said about this small and peculiar family is that its members' privacy is rarely violated: such books are talked about more often than they are read. One of the best examples from ante-bellum American literature is Caroline M. Kirkland's A New...