e
Cooper, when it appeared anonymously in eighteen hundred and
twenty-four. Miss Sedgwick's novels, however, pass out of nursery
comprehension in the first chapters, although these were full of a
healthy New England atmosphere, with coasting parties and picnics,
Indians and gypsies, nowhere else better described. The same tone
pervades her contributions to the "Juvenile Miscellany," the "Token,"
and the "Youth's Keepsake," together with her best-known children's
books, "Stories for Children," "A Well Spent Hour," and "A Love Token
for Children."

In contrast to Mrs. Sherwood's still popular "Fairchild Family,"
Catharine Sedgwick's stories breathe a sunny, invigorating atmosphere,
abounding in local incidents, and vigorous in delineation of types then
plentiful in New England. "She has fallen," wrote one admirer, most
truthfully, in the "North American Review" of 1827,--"she has fallen
upon the view, from which the treasures of our future literature are to
be wrought. A literature to have real freshness must be moulded by the
influences of the society where it had its origin. Letters thrive, when
they are at home in the soil. Miss Sedgwick's imaginations have such
vigor and bloom because they are not exotics." Another reviewer, aroused
by English criticism of the social life in America, and full of the much
vaunted theory that "all men are equal," rejoiced in the author's
attitude towards the so-called "help" in New England families in
contrast to Miss More's portrayal of the English child's condescension
towards inferiors, which he thought unsuitable to set before the
children in America.

All Miss Sedgwick's stories were the product of her own keen
intelligence and observation, and not written in imitation of Miss More,
Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Sherwood, as were the anonymous tales of "Little
Lucy; or, the Pleasant Day," or "Little Helen; a Day in the Life of a
Naughty Girl." They preached, indeed, at length, but the preaching
could be skipped by interested readers, and unlike the work of many
contemporaries, there was always a thread to take up.

Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, another favorite contributor to magazines,
collected her "Poetry for Children" into a volume bearing this title, in
eighteen hundred and thirty-four, and published "Tales and Essays" in
the same year. These were followed two years later by "Olive Buds," and
thereafter at intervals she brought out several other books, none of
which have now any inte