A New England Tale

Jane Elton, orphaned as a young girl, goes to live with her aunt Mrs. Wilson, a selfish and overbearing woman who practices a repressive Calvinism. In their rural New England village, Jane grows up yearning to break free from Mrs. Wilson's tyranny and find her place as a citizen of the evolving American Republic. She is helped by her encounters with characters who embody various shadings of moral, religious, and civic virtue: the affectionate servant Mary Hull, a pious Methodist; Mr. Lloyd, a kind Quaker; Crazy Bet, emotional, sympathetic, but deeply unstable; and Old John, bereaved but wise. Ultimately, A New-England Tale is about the connection between parenting and governing, and the key role women play in shaping a fledgling nation. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Jane Elton is left orphaned by both of her parents who die due to unpredictable ailments.After this traumatic experience, Jane is taken in by herselfish and overbearing aunt Mrs. Wilson's. Faced with a repressive Calvinism practiced by her aunt, and the conservative and rural mentality of her new New England home, Jane longs to break free. She grows up to be a beautiful young woman who catches the eye of many gentlemen lurking around Mrs. Wilson's residence. Still struggling to identify with who she really, while constantly conflicting with her aunt, Jane chooses one of her wooers and marries him out of desperation, although her heart is with another man. Her struggles continue in form of a romantic triangle threatening to end fatally, with many other obstacles standing in the way of her happiness.

The writer of this tale has made an humble effort to add something to the scanty stock of native American literature. Any attempt to conciliate favour by apologies would be unavailing and absurd. In this free country, no person is under any obligation to write; and the public (unfortunately) is under no obligation to read. It is certainly desirable to possess some sketches of the character and manners of our own country, and if this has been done with any degree of success, it would be wrong to doubt that it will find a reception sufficiently favourable. The original design of the author was, if possible, even more limited and less ambitious than what has been accomplished. It was simply to produce a very short and simple moral tale of the most humble description; and if in the course of its production it has acquired any thing of a peculiar or local cast, this should be chiefly attributed to the habits of the writer's education, and that kind of accident which seems to control the efforts of those who have not been the subjects of strict intellectual discipline, and have not sufficiently premeditated their own designs

"A New England Tale" by Catharine Maria Sedgwick. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

The Early American Women Writers series offers rare works of fiction by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women, each reprinted it its entirety, each with a foreword by General Editor Cathy N. Davidson, who places the novel in a historical and literary perspective. Ranging from serious cautionary tales about moral corruption to amusing and trenchant social satire, these books provide today's reader with a unique window into the earliest American popular fiction and way of life. Written in 1822, A New-England Tale is the first of Catharine Sedgwick's twenty novels in addition to the one hundred short magazine pieces she published in her lifetime. The story of an orphan girl in rural New England and the moral and religious trials she faces as she grows up, this intriguing portrait provides a unique look at the religious and political climate of this crucial period in America's development as a country. Addressing many of the complex religious, political, and philosophical issues of the time, as well as theoretical issues of the woman writer, A New-England Tale is a classic nineteenth-century story of a young woman's moral and material triumphs.