Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple Book

Note: I read only the first of the two books included in this collection.

I first approached this book with a bit of hostility over the fact that what has been described as "The first American novel" which outsold all others for 50 years before being unseated by "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a book whose title and author had entirely escaped my notice. How was this possible? Why had this book of such obvious resonance at the birth of this country been effectively erased? And what of its female author? Why was her name not as immediately recognizable as Washington Irving or James Fenimore Cooper?

Weeeelllll...

Probably because the book is not really well written. The subject matter is grim and the message overwhelmingly anti-feminist by modern standards. Still, it has its merits and is not unreadable by any means. It has historical value and it should be part of a well-rounded education in American literature. The sections on Christian hypocrisy were particularly poignant. And while anti-feminist by modern standards it was progressive for its time in entreating the world to stop casting aside women who make the mistake of falling in love with bad men. I enjoyed the insinuation that the greater crime than adultery was the crime of condemning "fallen" women to poverty, prostitution and death by disease rather than offering them succor and forgiveness. I applauded the paragraph where she anticipates the mansplaining that's going to happen and shoots it down acidly.

Overwrought? Yeah. Bur surely the greater crime than Revolutionary American melodrama is putting books about horny teenaged vampires getting on booklists that we issue a national challenge to our children to read? *waves to NPR*