About the Letters

To encourage and support the integrity of future scholarship, the CMS Online Letters (CMSOL) project will make available all letters written by Sedgwick during her nearly seven decades as an active correspondent, with authoritative transcriptions and selected holographs. Approximately two-thirds of Sedgwick’s letters reside at MHS and are available on microfilm; additional letters are held in other MHS collections, but many letters are scattered in archives across the nation and abroad. Our initial web publication was devoted to Sedgwick’s early years, beginning with her childhood letters of the 1790s and extending to 1826, shortly after her second novel, Redwood, had brought her national and international fame. In our second phase, we will publish Sedgwick’s letters through 1835. 

About Catharine Maria Sedgwick

Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867) is the most significant, experimental, influential, and highly regarded woman writer of the Early National Period of American Literature. Read more about her reputation and the scope of her letters here: https://www.primarysourcecoop.org/cms/who-was-catharine-maria-sedgwick/ .

Editorial Statement

Catharine Maria Sedgwick Quotes

“If there is anything that pervades my whole character, it is a love of freedom.”

CMS to Susan Higginson Channing, June 4, 1821

“I feel the scribbling fever throbbing at my finger’s ends at this moment, and a fit of this kind you know does not leave me suddenly.”

CMS to Frances Sedgwick Watson, May 31, 1812

Contributors

Editor and Project Director: Patricia Kalayjian, California State University, Dominguez Hills

Editor: Lucinda Damon-Bach, Salem State University

Editor: Deborah Gussman, Stockton University

Contributing Editor: Jill Kirsten Anderson, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Contributing Editor: Jordan L. Von Cannon, Florida Gulf Coast University

Additional contributors

Special thanks to the following graduate assistants and undergraduate contributors:

  • Cynthia Anstey, Stockton University
  • Alyssa Carrizales, Salem State University
  • Eryn Genova, Stockton University
  • Chantelle Leswell, Salem State University
  • Sarah Martell, Salem State University
  • Mickey C. McGrath, Salem State University
  • Leander Murphy, Salem State University
  • Gabrielle Shockley, Stockton University
  • Shaun Steup, Stockton University
  • Catherine A. Tunney, Salem State University

.

Credits

This project is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Acknowledgments

The CMSOL editorial team would like to thank the following institutions for their generous support of this project:

California State University – Dominguez Hills

Salem State University

Stockton University