Look Before You Leap
Marriage, courtship, love vs. reason.
A mother tells her daughters the story of a young woman who decided to marry an older man of whom she was fond but not passionately in love.
Sedgwick, Catharine M.
Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine. (January 1846): 13-17.
Edited by John Inman and Robert A. West.
January 1846
Kristina Curtis; D. Gussman
Collected in The Irving Offering, 168-86. New York: Leavitt, & Company, 1851. [pub. 1850]
English
Document
New-Year's Day
Stock market speculation, love, and marriage.
A young man borrows money from his intended fiance's father and, after the stock market collapses, is estranged from her and family. Unbeknownst to the other, he works to repay her father, and she remains true to her love for him.
Sedgwick, Catharine M.
Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine (February 1846): 83-89.
Edited by John Inman and Robert A. West
1846
Heather Harman; D. Gussman
Also collected in The Gem of the Season for 1849. New York: Leavitt, Trow & Co., 1849.
English
Daniel Prime
Avarice, murder.
A father disinherits his daughter because he disapproves of the man she marries. The husband's plot to regain his father-in-laws estate leads to fatal consequences.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria.
Tales and Sketches, Second Series.
Harper & Brothers
1844
Anna Mullis, L. Damon-Bach, D. Gussman
Originally published in The Magnolia, edited by Henry William Herbert, 281-311. New York: Bancroft & Holley, 1837 [pub. 1836]. Also collected in The Irish Girl and Other Tales, 95-128, 1850, and in Stedman, Edmund Clarence and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds. A Library of American Literature: An Anthology in Eleven Volumes, Vol. V , 199-215, 1891.
English
The White Hills in October
Star-crossed lovers, filial piety, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, off-season tourism.
The narrator presents the journal of a trip to the White Mountains by Mary Langdon, a young American woman, who has just ended a relationship with her German lover due to her father's disapproval. A mysterious stranger appears at a significant moment and changes the young woman's fortunes.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. [published anonymously]
Harper's New Monthly Magazine [edited by Alfred A. Guernsey] (December 1856): 44-56.
1856
Margaret Erickson, D. Gussman
The Continental Monthly [by C. M. Sedgwick] (October 1862): 423-44.
English
Document
Straggling Excerpts from a Journal Kept in Switzerland
Travel in Switzerland, troubled marriage.
The narrator, "Miss S.", describes her travels in Switzerland with two young female companions, and their encounter with a mysterious English gentleman with a troubled past.
Sedgwick, Catharine M.
Sartain's Union Magazine, Volume II (January-June 1848): 115-121.
[edited by Caroline M. Kirkland]
1848
Kaley McDowell; D. Gussman
Reprinted as "The English Colonel and His Wife" by Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick in The Gem of the Season: A Souvenir for 1851, 58-80. New York: Leavitt and Company, 1851 [pub. 1850].
English
Document
Uncle David
Economics, gentility.
An uncle teaches his nieces and nephews lessons about economics, gentility, and falls in love with a worthy woman.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria.
The Pearl; or Affection's Gift, 17-37.
Philadelphia: Thomas T. Ash & Henry F. Anners
1837 [pub. 1836]
D. Gussman
English
Document
Cousin Frank
Bachelors, vocation, benevolence.
The narrator offers a sketch of a bachelor who is loved by family and friends for his generosity and benevolence.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Vol. 12, May 1843, pp. 512-513.
Edited by John L. O'Sullivan
1843
Matt Burton, L. Damon-Bach, D. Gussman
Reprinted in New World (6 May 1843): 537-38. Collected in Sedgwick, Catharine, Tales and Sketches, Second Series, 163-168, 1844.
English
Document
Full Thirty
The Great Fire of 1835, women and work, May-December romance.
A young woman and her mother find themselves in reduced circumstances after a fire that devastates New York City. The daughter is supported in her efforts to earn a living by an older female friend of the family, who narrates the story, and a mature bachelor who develops romantic feelings for the young woman.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, [edited by Samuel G. Goodrich], pp. 214-246.
Boston: Charles Bowen
1837 [pub. 1836]
D. Gussman
Document
Widowhood
Marriage, widowhood, faith, and resilience.
The narrator tells the story of Emily Winthrop and her journey from wife to widow and bereavement to peace.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria.
The Mirror of Life, edited by Louisa C. Tuthill, Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1847, pp. 165-74.
Lindsay and Blakiston
1847
D. Gussman
Document
Who, and What, Has Not Failed
The Panic of 1837
The narrator reflects on responses to the US financial crisis of 1837, focusing on a family whose daughter is about to be married, and offers an alternative to panic and despair.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria.
New-Yorker, June 17, 1837, p. 199.
1837
D. Gussman
English
Document