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Elizabeth Oakes Smith: Selected Writings, Volume I: Emergence and Fame, 1831-1849

Elizabeth Oakes Smith: Selected Writings, Volume I: Emergence and Fame, 1831-1849
By author: Timothy H. Scherman
Product Code: HH1034
ISBN: 9780881468854
Availability: In stock
Price: $45.00

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Timothy H. Scherman re-introduces modern readers to a nineteenth-century woman writer and political activist whose disappearance from literary history would seem impossible in light of the volume of her published writing and the visceral responses she elicited from readers in her own day. Collecting samples of her work in every genre--personal letters, short fiction, essays, lectures, editorial, memoir, excerpts from several novels and one of her plays--Scherman captures the full creative range of one of the earliest woman professionals in the literary field in three conveniently arranged volumes. Scherman's most intriguing admission in his editor's introduction constitutes the difference between this series and others like it in the recent recovery of women writers of Oakes Smith's era. While grounding the writer's life and work in the broad contours of U.S. and trans-Atlantic literary culture and suggesting thematic and political relations among Oakes Smith's variety of writings, these volumes advertise a still broadly open field of investigation, where even basic information that might lead to clearer understanding of Oakes Smith's success and latter-day disappearance await the scholar, the graduate student, or the amateur historian with access to a growing array of electronic archives at their fingertips, now including an expanded Oakes Smith website and EOS Log.
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Reviews

Review by: Sandra Tomc, professor of English, University of British Columbia; and author of INDUSTRY AND THE CREATIVE MIND - January 2, 2023
"Stocked with Elizabeth Oakes Smith's letters, poems, sketches, and short stories, most of which are brought together for the first time, this volume traces her emergence as a professional writer. Particularly revelatory and touching are the letters exchanged between Oakes Smith and her husband, author Seba Smith, during their first separation in a decade of marriage that provide a unique insight into the day-to-day details of an editorial and domestic partnership. Deeply researched and well-annotated, these volumes will be of great interest to both scholars and students."
Review by: Rebecca Jaroff, associate professor of English, Ursinus College - January 2, 2023
"A series on the writings of Elizabeth Oakes Smith is long overdue. Timothy Scherman offers a thoughtfully curated collection in three volumes that trace the life and times of this remarkable woman, detailing her wide-ranging contributions to nineteenth-century American culture, and her struggle to find her own voice. This series, edited with the expertise developed over three decades of research, will answer as many questions about Oakes Smith's life and work as it raises, enticing scholars and students to delve deeper into this complex, multi-talented, and eminent figure's broad range of texts."

Goodreads reviews