Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. A NEW ENGLAND TALE, AND MISCELLANIES . New-York: George P. Putnam & Co., 10 Park Place, 1852. 12mo, pp. [1-9] 10 [11] 12-388 [note: first leaf is a blank], flyleaves at front and rear, original decorated green cloth stamped in gold and blind, light salmon endpapers. Third edition, expanded. Miss Sedgwick's given name is misspelled "Catherine" on the title page. Sedgwick's first book and first novel, anonymously published in 1822. "It was begun as a Unitarian tract, and throughout her long and busy life the interests of Catharine Sedgwick were moral and social. But the influence of Cooper is as clear as that of Maria Edgeworth and she continued to write fiction until 1857 ... A NEW ENGLAND TALE was popular enough to call for a new edition in 1852 ..." - Quinn, American Fiction, p. 103. This 1852 edition, part of Putnam's uniform edition of Miss Sedgwick's works, prints an extended version of the author's preface to the 1822 second edition and adds three short stories, "A Berkshire Tradition," "Fanny McDermot" (a seduction story), both first published here in book form, and "The White Scarf," first published in THE TOKEN AND ATLANTIC SOUVENIR ... (1839, i.e. 1838) and first collected here. Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867), daughter of Pamela Dwight and Theodore Sedgwick, both descendants of seventeenth-century settlers in New England, was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. "Throughout her life she was closely identified with this region; her novels dealing with the natural beauty and local customs of the Berkshires are among the first attempts to use American material in fiction." - DAB. BAL 17407. Wright (II) 2178. Aside from considerable foxing to the text block early and late, a 40 mm horizontal tear in front pastedown, and a bit of wear to cloth at extremities (especially the bottom 25 mm of the front cover's fore-edge), a very good, sound, tight copy with bright cover stamping. A scarce edition of this novel. (#118045)