Elizabeth Oakes Smith: Selected Writings, Volume III: From Novels and Drama, 1842-1888
The third volume of ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH: SELECTED WRITINGS offers readers selections from several of her longer works written between 1842 and the late 1880s: THE WESTERN CAPTIVE (1842), one of the first "paperback" novels sold in the United States; BERTHA AND LILY (1854), a novel featuring one of the first "fallen" heroines in the sentimental tradition; THE NEWSBOY, Oakes Smith's second novel of 1854 and her deepest foray into the lives of the working poor; “The Queen of Tramps” (1874-1888), a complete novel left in manuscript at the time of her death; and OLD NEW YORK (1853), a historical melodrama bringing a female lead character to the center of late-seventeenth century colonial rebellion in New York City. As in Volumes I and II of this series, Scherman frames and annotates each of these texts in terms of their contemporary reception and their relation to the work of other nineteenth-century writers and the broader culture. In each case, special attention is paid to the place of the work in Oakes Smith's career-long effort to balance, on one hand, her need to provide for herself and her family with gainful work, and, on the other, the role she called the "public teacher," writing what might change the minds of her national audience in progressive ways. Like previous volumes in this series, Volume III offers readers many archival documents, both key business correspondence and rare manuscripts, published here for the first time.