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First lady of letters : Judith Sargent Murray and the struggle for female independence / Sheila L. Skemp.
LIBRA PS808.M8 Z87 2009
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Skemp, Sheila L.
- Series:
- Early American studies
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Murray, Judith Sargent, 1751-1820.
- Murray, Judith Sargent.
- Authors, American--18th century--Biography.
- Authors, American.
- Authors, American--19th century--Biography.
- Feminism and literature.
- History.
- United States.
- Feminists--United States--Biography.
- Feminists.
- Feminism and literature--United States--History--18th century.
- Feminism and literature--United States--History--19th century.
- Women and literature--United States--History--18th century.
- Women and literature.
- Women and literature--United States--History--19th century.
- Genre:
- Biographies.
- Physical Description:
- xvi, 484 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2009]
- Summary:
- "In the 1990s, Unitarian-Universalist minister Reverend Gordon Gibson...discovered Judith's nine letter books-containing some 2,500 of Murray's personal letters as well as a significant number of unpublished poems and essays-and rescued them from oblivion. When Judith left Boston for Natchez in 1818, she brought few of her possessions with her. That she was determined to see that the letter books made the arduous journey halfway across the North American continent is a measure of the importance they held for her. They served as a diary, a record of good times and bad gone forever. Even more important, she saw them as her final bid for literary immortality. Depressed by her inability to achieve the literary celebrity she had once been convinced would be hers, she still held out hope that subsequent generations would see in her letters and her life something of value that her own contemporaries failed to observe. Those letter books, as well as the not insignificant corpus of her published work, have made this book possible."
- Contents:
- Part I Rebellions: 1769-1784 1
- Chapter 1 "This Remote Spot" 9
- Chapter 2 Universal Salvation 41
- Chapter 3 Independence 67
- Chapter 4 Creating a Genteel Nation 94
- Part II Republic of Letters: 1783-1798 123
- Chapter 5 "Sweet Peace" 129
- Chapter 6 A Belle Passion 159
- Chapter 7 A Wider World 187
- Chapter 8 A Career of Fame 213
- Chapter 9 "A School of Virtue" 234
- Chapter 10 Federalist Muse 267
- Part III Retreat: 1798-1820 299
- Chapter 11 "We Are Fallen on Evil Times" 309
- Chapter 12 Republican Daughters, Republican Sons 334.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [387]-471) and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780812241402
- 0812241401
- OCLC:
- 243675316
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