ABSTRACT
Miss Sedgwick holds about the same position among our female prose writers that Cooper holds among American novelists. She was the first of her class whose writings became generally known, and the eminence universally conceded to her on account of her priority, has been almost as generally granted on other grounds. Miss Sedgwick is a native, and has been much of her life, a resident of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her father was the Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, of Stockbridge, who served his country with distinguished reputation in various stations, and particularly in the Congress of the United States, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and afterwards as Senator, and who, at the time of his death, was one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of his own State. Miss Sedgwick's first publication was The New England Tale. Its publication broke the ice of diffidence and indifference, and launched her, under a strong wind, upon the broad sea of letters.
