The Linwoods; or Sixty Years Since in America

by Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Maria Karafilis (Editor)

A story of familial and national discord, conciliation, and redemption, The Linwoods is perhaps the major work of one of the leading writers of early American literature. Set during the American Revolution, Catharine Sedgwick's last historical romance addresses issues of virtuous citizenship, civic identity, and the political development of the nation. The primary narrative thread tells the story of two families: the Linwoods, who are loyalists, and the Lees, who are revolutionaries. Much of the novel narrates the transformation of the Linwood children, especially the heroine, Isabella, from Tory to Rebel. In the process, Isabella not only rebels against British control of the colonies, but challenges the institution of slavery, gender norms, and patriarchal authority. Disguise, intrigues of Rebel and Tory spies, cross-racial and cross-gender passing, as well as cases of mistaken identity not only make for a compelling read, but also foster an anti-aristocratic skepticism of surface appearances and external markers of virtue and identity that resonated with the rhetoric of Jacksonian democracy.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, American

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1835

About the author

Catharine Maria Sedgwick was born December 28, 1789 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. As a young woman, Sedgwick took charge of a school in Lenox. She converted from Calvinism to Unitarianism, which led her to write a pamphlet denouncing religious intolerance. This further inspired her to write her first novel, A New-England Tale.

With her work much in demand, from the 1820s to the 1850s, Sedgwick made a good living writing short stories for a variety of periodicals. She died in 1867, and by the end of the 19th century, she had been relegated to near obscurity. There was a rise of male critics who deprecated women's writing as they worked to create an American literature.

Interest in Sedgwick's works and an appreciation of her contribution to American literature has been stimulated by the late 20th century's feminist movement. Beginning in the 1960s, feminist scholars began to re-evaluate women's contributions to literature and other arts, and created new frames of reference for considering their work. In addition, the advent of low-cost electronic reproductions, which became available at the end of the 20th century, made Sedgwick and other nineteenth-century authors' work more accessible for study and pleasure.

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book (and Isabella Linwood) so much I wanted to name my first born daughter Isabella. Then that bitch Bella Swan came along and ruined everything.

Seriously though, this is a fantastic novel with great exploration of the "ideal woman" of the time, and the changing "ideal." I wrote a huge research paper on it, but I won't bore you all.

Worth the read, and I still like the name Isabella.

[Edwin Lang · Rating 3 out of 5]

This historical romance is placed in Boston - New York at the time of the American Revolution.

This was my first, and last, historical-romance and unless my fears become reality, and I, not quite a good man, find myself condemned to Hell and doomed to read this genre for eternity. The Linwoods, Sixty Years Since is written by the mid - 19th Century author, Catherine Maria Sedgwick. It is very much an idealized story: Washington is near god-like; there are classic heroes and villains, and shrews, and damsels in distress who faint under duress. Men seem to be idealized as fundamentally pivoting towards women.

The author also seemed to wax poetic about the War, and how noble the undertaking. War is awful, and perhaps this is the Canadian in me. I couldn’t stop seeing the Linwood woman and the author herself, in a hijab urging on their sons and families to root out and destroy the infidels – the British. There seemed a fanaticism in Ms. Sedgwick’s writing and in her characters that I found disturbing. No question the British were silly in their domineering arrogance, as all bullies are, but when one fights an enemy, blood against blood, one risks becoming as awful, as inhumane, as hardhearted and hard-headed as one’s enemy. The Linwoods was nonetheless a gentle story, told in a brutal time, and although she told the story well, balancing the ‘rebels’ of late 1700’s – that is, Washington and his ‘rebels’ against the British occupiers and their American supporters – generally the rich and business people – Ms. Sedgwick herself was decidedly a patriot: one could hear her voice loud and clear.

It was also hard, maybe again as a Canadian, to see the Americans, a great people and certainly seen as friends by us Canadians, seemingly getting it all so wrong even from the very start. My next book, Warlock by Oakley Hall, takes place about 100 years later; it is inherently violent and suggests Americans are inherently so. In 2013 Ontario elected Kathleen Wynne as our province's first female Premier and the first premier in Canada to be openly gay. She had actually left her young family many years ago for her partner, which ironically as a family man bothered me a lot but not enough to prevent me from voting for her. To our credit in Canada / Ontario her gayness wasn’t an issue – and she stood for change and we liked that. She’s about to be elected out now because, I think, once in power she opted for (or could only deliver) the status quo and her byword became not change but ‘stability’. So, as a result on one hand sameness, and on the other we had extreme diversity. It had a strange effect on the public sector space: management mail boxes are in strikingly bright pink – not rich mauve or intelligent yellow but glaringly headachy pink. The culture seemed to have become strangely FemDom-ish, and the message seemed to be: not only do we want yes-men (and -women) on board but we mandate that our men be castrated too.

It seems that all our good intentions have gone bad, and this seemed to have come through in Sedgwick’s writing too, in the context of the book’s subtitle “Sixty Years Since in America”. I read just today that when Charles Dickens and his wife visited America in 1842, roughly around the time Ms. Sedgwick wrote The Linwoods, expecting to see the vibrancy inherent in the Founding Fathers’ American dream that propelled the American Revolution he returned to England dismayed and disappointed. It was interesting to see the West mock Vladimir Putin’s announcement last week of his increasingly modernized and sophisticated nuclear arsenal because on the projection screen he looked like the Wizard of Oz. But I thought I heard behind his jingoism a message that he believes the world is ready for another war, and that it might be something we need, a sentiment I also see emanating from the Chinese President Xi Jinping as well: A reset of sorts, a fundamental rethink.

So, overall then The Linwoods was an ennobling and thoughtful novel: Ms. Sedgwick seems to call us to be more than we are today, to be people of integrity and honour and to recall and reflect on the ideals foundational to America and for that matter for most of our democracies as well. She was a deeply educated woman, took the singles path to devote herself courageously to writing and was a spiritual woman rightfully mocking society’s norms – even one as young as America was in the late seventeen hundreds and in her own time as well. I suspect Ms. Sedgwick knew her Bible well and knew that the principles on which Hosea critiqued ancient Israel surely warn us that a society that abandons the needy and any society that prizes ritual over integrity will eventually run aground on its own self-absorption. It is a hard read but a good one, and I found myself really liking the author, for her skill, idealism, her sense of humour and humility and even her position as a moralist and romanticist.

A columnist for our Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail, Elizabeth Renzetti, wrote an opinion today based on her book “Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls” that seemed to reflect Sedgwick’s heart:

“A man who will whisk a coffee mug filled with mouldy sunflower seed shells from your bedside table with no words further than “Good Morning Baby” is a man you want holding your hand at the very end. When I found this man – there was only one left in the shop – I married him”.

And Elizabeth Renzetti’s comment was also subtitled ‘Young Women: Be Large’, and I think Sedgwick would have agreed with both sentiments.

Edwin

[Whittney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a whole lot of depth, but worth the read.

[dan lauby · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like domestic novels, then you will find the portrayal of the American War of Independence fascinating. Much like Hope Leslie, Sedgwick presents warfare and colonialism through a domestic lens. However, Sedgwick also replicates some plot devices that can leave one yearning for more originality.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

As obscure 19th-century women authors go, Sedgwick probably won't rival Margaret Oliphant in my affections, but this had some fun moments.

[Matthew Hilfiker · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Washington is badass