A New-England Tale; Or, Sketches of New-England Character and Manners

The Early American Women Writers series offers rare works of fiction by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women, each reprinted it its entirety, each with a foreword by General Editor Cathy N. Davidson, who places the novel in a historical and literary perspective. Ranging from seriouscautionary tales about moral corruption to amusing and trenchant social satire, these books provide today's reader with a unique window into the earliest American popular fiction and way of life. Written in 1822, A New-England Tale is the first of Catherine Sedgwick's twenty novels in addition to the one hundred short magazine pieces she published in her lifetime. The story of an orphan girl in rural New England and the moral and religious trials she faces as she grows up, this intriguingportrait provides a unique look at the religious and political climate of this crucial period in America's development as a country. Addressing many of the complex religious, political, and philosophical issues of the time, as well as theoretical issues of the woman writer, A New-England Tale is aclassic nineteenth-century story of a young woman's moral and material triumphs.

Cathy N. Davidson is Professor of English at Duke University and editor of American Literature. She is co-editor of The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States and author of Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America.
Victoria Clements is a professor of English at the College of Southern Maryland and co-editor of Catharine Maria Sedgwick: Critical Perspectives.