Catharine Sedgwick, Redwood: A Tale

Redwood follows Ellen Bruce as she discovers her parentage and crafts her own identity, featuring a powerful embedded slave narrative and a remarkable mentor, Debby Lenox. The new edition includes a critical introduction, bibliography, and appendices.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 18 February 2023
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Redwood: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Identity
Ellen Bruce, the protagonist of Redwood, embarks on a captivating journey of self-discovery and identity formation as she navigates the complex social currents of pious New England farmers, southern belles from South Carolina, slave-owning atheists from Virginia, and sophisticated Philadelphia socialites. Throughout her journey, Ellen seeks to uncover the secret of her parentage and forge her own path as a strong American woman.

Set against the backdrop of the antebellum South, Redwood's embedded slave narrative provides a powerful early prototype for later anti-slavery fiction. Ellen's mentor, Debby Lenox, a single woman who stands over six feet tall and makes her own rules about what constitutes respectable behavior for women, is remarkably refreshing and original, even two centuries after Sedgwick crafted her.

This new edition of Redwood includes a historically and theoretically informed critical introduction that situates the novel within American social and literary history. It also features a bibliography for further research and appendices detailing the significant differences between the two nineteenth-century editions.

Redwood's exploration of the complexities of identity, race, and gender is both timely and relevant, making it a must-read for anyone interested in American history and literature.

Weight: 513g
Dimension: 234 x 156 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399511117