subjects’ works were conceived, to Europe and reported on the Brit- principles of thought and action for written, published, and received. ish working classes and the Roman America. The condition of women is central Revolution of 1848-9. In Rome, she to her. Genteel, educated American nursed wounded soldiers, as Louisa Gisela Argyle, Associate Professor of women of this period were subject May Alcott, inspired by Florence Humanities at York University in to the Victorian ideology of sepa- Nightingale, did during the American , has published Germany as rate spheres. For wives, men, as in Civil War. In Italy Fuller acted on her Model and Monster: Allusions in Emerson’s and Hawthorne’s case, regret that by avoiding the “trap” that English Fiction, 1830s-1930s (Mon- chose stability over passion, a help- marriage seemed to mean for women treal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, mate for their genius. Daughters, she was incurring a loss: “With the 2002), another book and articles on such as Louisa May Alcott, were intellect I always have always shall Victorian literature and comparative pressed into similar service. Before overcome, but that is not half of the literature, as well as literary transla- her marriage to Hawthorne, Sophia work. The life, the life Oh my God! tions from German into English and Peabody, in Cheever’s interpretation, Shall the life never be sweet?” George the converse. chose a common alternative to the Eliot quoted this sentiment in a letter burdens of marriage or spinsterhood of 1852 as “inexpressibly touching.” by making the most of her medically In need of earning a living for her SISTERS IN TWO induced ailments and becoming a new small family, including her baby WORLDS: A VISUAL “bed case.” Louisa May Alcott, also son and his father Count Ossoli, a life-long victim of bad medicine, who had been disinherited for his BIOGRAPHY OF served both her birth-family and republican politics, Fuller sailed with friends all her life, directly and with them to America, but they perished AND CATHARINE her earnings. After a long career of in a spectacular shipwreck on the PARR TRAILL potboilers, children’s stories, articles, New coast. The manuscript and editorial work, Alcott finally of her “History of the Late Italian Michael Peterman wrote her wishful woman’s life into Revolutions” was also lost. A new Toronto: Doubleday , 2007 the best-selling and now canonical biography, Charles Capper’s Mar- novel Little Women (1868-9). Cheev- garet Fuller: An American Romantic reviewed by alison er sees in Little Women and Thoreau’s Life (2 vols., 1992, 2007), aims at norman Walden (1854) “the foundation of the compensating for the relative neglect American memoir”; in Little Women caused by her early death at forty and “Alcott invented a new way to write her small published record and at Sisters in Two Worlds is a beautiful about the ordinary lives of women,” establishing her as a first-rank public book, one that will appeal to both and Cheever pays back the debt in intellectual. specialists in Canadian women’s his- this biography. Cheever’s address throughout tory, and general readers interested But she also celebrates the uncon- is exclusively American: from an in Canadiana. Susanna (Strickland) ventional life that the erudite and American author to an American Moodie and Catharine Parr (Strick- passionate Margaret Fuller insisted audience on American icons. This land) Traill are two of Canada’s best- on creating for herself. The first accounts for what in a larger historical known pioneer “bush ladies,” having woman to be admitted to the Har- and transnational context would be immigrated to from vard Library, she circumvented the overstatements on her subjects’ origi- England in 1832. Both were prolific law against women’s public speaking nality, achievements, and influence. writers, publishing short stories, nov- for money by conducting “Con- For instance, she omits any reference els, children’s books, emigrant manu- versations” in Boston. She edited to Mary Wollstonecraft in the case of als, and poetry throughout their lives. Emerson’s magazine The Dial until it Margaret Fuller and is silent on such Although Strickland scholar Michael became clear that he would not pay European Romantic and proto-Ro- Peterman has written a thoughtful her for her “service,” and, in tandem mantic works as Rousseau’s Reveries of narrative that tells the life stories with her anti-slavery campaign, she a Solitary Walker, Goethe’s Sufferings of these two famous sisters, the star published Women in the Nineteenth of Young Werther, and Wordsworth’s of the book is not the text, but the Century (1845), which originated Prelude when she claims that in hundreds of images reproduced in in an essay in The Dial: “The Great Walden Thoreau “invented nature colour on virtually every page. The Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman writing and memoir writing in text is there to support the images, versus Women,” laying out “the one swift, brilliant stroke.” What and not the reverse. For this reason foundations of modern feminism.” her engaging narrative shows is the especially, the book is a valuable addi- After becoming the first female editor Concord Transcendentalists’ patriat- tion to the collection of publications of the New York Tribune, she travelled ing and thereby adapting of crucial on the Strickland family.

174 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME The book begins with an intro- images, as well as quotations from A LITERARY HISTORY duction by , author the women themselves, which tell OF WOMEN’S of the popular account of the lives the story of their lives. The book is WRITING IN BRITAIN, of the Strickland sisters, Sisters in clearly exceptionally well researched. the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna For example, there are portraits and 1660-1789 Moodie and . photographs of both women and In the following eleven chapters, many family members, newspaper Susan Staves Peterman takes the reader from the articles, copies of documents, the Cambridge: Cambridge University birth of the Strickland children in frontispieces of their books, photos Press, 2006 Suffolk, England at the end of the of gravestones, letters, and maps as eighteenth century, through their well as well as paintings and photo- reviewed by judith marriages, emigration, struggles in graphs of homes and regions where anderson stuart Upper Canada, and finally their they lived. Peterman seems to have deaths towards the end of the century. collected images of every home that I spent many pleasant hours in Throughout the chronological narra- the sisters ever lived in, and to have airports and bus stations over the tive of the women’s lives, Peterman published so many images (previously December holiday with Susan Staves’ deftly contextualizes their experiences scattered in archives and libraries literary history. Her insistence on the throughout the nineteenth century, across the United Kingdom and critical evaluation of women’s liter- fitting their personal stories into the Canada) in one place is surely an ary merit, her contextualization of larger narrative, including events such accomplishment, if not a source of women’s writings with the historical as the Napoleonic wars, the waves delight for his readers. movements from which they arose, of immigration to British North Peterman is ideally suited to have and her cross-generic approach are America, and the rebellions of 1837. put together this book, as he prob- interesting and useful. Her book will As the book is not geared towards an ably personally inspected many of engage scholars of feminist literature academic audience, the references the documents and images for his and feminist literary history. are predictably lacking. Footnotes previous publications. He is certainly Faced with the wealth of writ- are few, and the bibliography is one of the most important Strickland ing by women in her hundred and limited. An additional nuisance is scholars, publishing multiple books twenty-nine year period of study, that if a reader wants to know where on these women, including edited Staves made hard choices about the a particular quotation comes from, collections of letters, short stories, women authors and their works to be Peterman has only provided general and monographs. It is clear that included in this volume. Her literary information as to which book or Peterman has some affection for history privileges those texts that she collection of letters it comes from, the Strickland sisters (as do many finds to be the “most original, most and not the page number. However, scholars familiar with their stories). intelligent, best written, and most this type of referencing is common in The book is really a celebration of significant.” Such an assessment is books intended for a popular audi- their lives, struggles, successes, and necessarily rather subjective, but ence, and does not detract from the contributions to Staves seeks to be selective rather than book as a whole. One useful addition and history. exhaustive. This is not to say that her is the inclusion of several family trees Sisters in Two Worlds is a book that history is unduly limited, however: which make following the family will surely be enjoyed by its readers for the very scope of this text (430-plus history much easier. Peterman’s thoughtful biographies, pages, not including a copious bibli- In Sisters in Two Worlds, Peterman but probably more so because it is a ography and extensive notes) allows does an excellent job of literally paint- pleasure to view. for the consideration of a great range ing a picture of life in the backwoods, of literary performances. In examin- and this is where its value lies. Readers Alison Norman is a doctoral candidate ing her subject texts across genres and of Traill and Moodie will have surely in the history of education program at time, she emphasizes women’s vary- tried to visualize it before, but it is a oise/University of Toronto. Her thesis ing responses to social influences and pleasure to have so many images laid examines gender, race, and colonial- restrictions, in the process discovering before our eyes. There are over 200 ism in early twentieth century Brant a “rise of the woman author [which] colour illustrations printed on only County, with a focus on the Six Nations is…bittersweet.” 176 pages, which makes for a visually at Grand River. She has been fascinated Each of Staves’ seven chapters pleasing and image-dense book. It is by the Strickland sisters for years. focuses on a specific period which also well designed, at times having is hinged to political influences the feel of a scrapbook with quota- on women’s writing: 1660-89 (the tions overlaid on images. Peterman Restoration to Aphra Behn’s death); and the designers at Doubleday have 1689-1702 (the reign of William and beautifully put together a variety of

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