Abstract
Susanna Haswell Rowson (c. 1762–1824), the daughter of a British naval officer and royal customs official, was born in England, raised in Massachusetts, and returned to England as part of a prisoner exchange in 1778. After joining a theater company in Philadelphia in 1793, she finally settled in Boston in 1796. A successful actress, playwright, novelist, and founder of a respected girls’ academy in Boston, Rowson published her work under her own name. Her fourth novel, Charlotte. A Tale of Truth, was written and published in London in 1791 and republished in Philadelphia in 1794. The most popular novel in America until the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, Charlotte went through more than two hundred editions and sold about forty thousand copies in its first decade.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2001 Bedford/St. Martin’s
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kornfeld, E. (2001). Contesting Popular Culture. In: Creating an American Culture, 1775–1800. The Bedford Series in History and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-03834-0_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-03834-0_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-63132-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-03834-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)