[Sedgwick, Catharine Maria.]. REDWOOD: A TALE. By the Author of "Hope Leslie," etc. ... Author's Revised Edition. Complete in One Volume. New-York: George P. Putnam, 155 Broadway, 1850. 12mo, pp. [i-vii] viii-xi [xii-xiii] xiv-xv [xvi] [17] 18-457 [458: blank], flyleaves at front and rear, original decorated dark green cloth stamped in gold and blind, cream endpapers. Second edition, revised. Sedgwick's second novel, anonymously published in 1824. REDWOOD "is another moral tale, with some reality in the description of the social customs in New England in the early part of the nineteenth century." - Quinn, American Fiction, p. 103. "Embedded in a novel of manners are three chapters (book 2, chapters 14-16) depicting a Shaker community as a dystopia, particularly because of the community's repression of sexuality." - Kessler (ed.), Daring to Dream: Utopian Fiction by United States Women Before 1950, Second edition (1995), p. 250. This 1850 edition, part of Putnam's uniform edition of Miss Sedgwick's works, prints the author's definitive text. 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 17400. Wright (I) 2367. Split in cloth along outer front joint discreetly repaired, heavy foxing to text block, some staining to gutter margins of last several gatherings, but a quite sound, good copy. A scarce edition of this novel. (#118047)