Book Description

"We think it is not too much to say that this is the best volume of brief biographies of the past year. It contains short yet very graphic and informing life-sketches of seven eminent daughters of New England - seven of those fine, true lives that morally, even more than mentally, enriched civilization. Here we have an outline picture of the immense and civilization-wide work for humanity wrought by that noble, practicable and indefatigable toiler for humanity, Dorothea Lynde Dix - that angel of light to the insane of the world. And here is the story of that other moral heroine, Lydia Maria Child, who dared and did so much for the freedom of the black man, and whose broad thought contributed in no small degree to the more tolerant, charitable and reason-cultivating attitude of the American mind....Each life was victorious in the high sense of the word, because, from childhood till the evening shadows fell, the character in every instance gradually and splendidly unfolded into noble and still nobler proportions....Mr. Beach has succeeded in a far greater degree than most biographers in revealing the soul or the true personality of his subjects by faithful study of the life, the letters and utterances, and by seizing only those things that are germane to the life in hand. He has told his stories entertainingly and in such a manner as to bring the reader into the most intimate and sympathetic relations with his subjects. This is a rare gift which transforms biography from a dull, dry, and often profitless form of literature into something at once absorbingly interesting and of the highest possible value to the human mind. No one can read these lives without being renewed in spirit, and for young women we know of no works so instinct with spiritual virility or so potential for good as the 'Daughters of the Puritans.'" -The Arena "Characterized by a real interest of subject matter and a pleasantly unconventional manner of treatment....Catehine Maria Sedgwick, Mary Lowell Ware, Lydia Maria Child, Dorothea Lynde Dix, Margaret Fuller, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Louisa M. Alcott are the particular women about whom Mr. Beach has chosen to write. Of nearly every one of them an authoritative biography or memoir of some sort has been written, and one purpose of these essays is to call attention to the more elaborate studies and to stimulate interest in them. One of the interesting disclosures of these sketches, which are studies of personality rather than more formal and studied biography, is the picture of the early nineteenth century which they incidentally convey. Life was very simple in those far-off days, and literature, too, was simple and unsophisticated; but neither life nor literature ever lacked serious inspiration." -The Dial "Reminiscences of the emergence of these daughters of the Puritans from the Calvinism of their ancestors, and other notices of the literary and humanitarian movements in which they engaged, add a distinct historical interest to these biographies. The thoughtful reader instinctively feels that New England owes much of her greatness to the nobility of her women." -The Outlook "The delightful style of the author makes the reading of these biographical sketches a source of pleasure and profit." -Christian Register CONTENTS CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK (1789-1867) MARY LOVELL WARE (1798-1849) LYDIA MARIA CHILD (1802-1880) DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX (1802-1887) SARAH MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI (1810-1850) HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-1896) LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-1888)