Title Married or single? / Catharine Maria Sedgwick ; edited and with an introduction by Deborah Gussman

Published Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2015

Click on the following:
EBSCO eBooks

Copies

Description 1 online resource Series Legacies of nineteenth-century American women writers Legacies of nineteenth-century American women writers. Contents Cover ; Title Page ; Copyright Page ; Contents ; Acknowledgments; Editor's Introduction; A Note on the Text; Married or Single?; Notes Summary "Married or Single?, published in 1857, was Catharine Maria Sedgwick's final novel and a fitting climax to the career of one of antebellum America's first and most successful woman writers. Insisting on women's right to choose whether to marry, Married or Single? rejects the stigma of spinsterhood and offers readers a wider range of options for women in society, recognizing their need and ability to determine the course of their lives. Sedgwick's touching, witty, and shrewdly observant novel centers on Grace Herbert, a New York City socialite who must negotiate the marriage market and also learn to develop her own character and take control of her own destiny. The story merges a wide range of popular American literary forms--including the seduction novel, the conversion narrative, the novel of education, and social reform fiction--and provides a window on many of the cultural and political anxieties of the 1850s beyond marriage, including immigration, slavery, and urban poverty. Sedgwick's lifelong concern with women's duties to the nation as citizens is demonstrated through her depiction of exemplary women of various backgrounds and circumstances who illustrate the idea that becoming a worthy human being is more important than becoming a wife, especially in a democratic society."-- Provided by publisher "Nineteenth-century novel that redefines the role of women in marriage, singlehood, and the working world of America in the 1850s"-- Provided by publisher Notes Originally published: New York : Harper, 1857 Bibliography Includes bibliographical references Notes Print version record Subject Self-actualization (Psychology) in women -- Fiction Self-realization in women -- Fiction Sex role -- Fiction Social role -- Fiction Choice (Psychology) -- Fiction FICTION -- Literary. FICTION -- Historical. SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Women's Studies. FICTION -- Psychological. Choice (Psychology) Self-actualization (Psychology) in women Self-realization in women Sex role Social conditions Social role SUBJECT United States -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction Subject United States Genre/Form Domestic fiction Fiction Psychological fiction Domestic fiction. Psychological fiction. Form Electronic book Author Gussman, Deborah, editor ISBN 9780803274990 0803274998 9780803274976 0803274971

  Permalink