Caroline Chesebro' was one of the most unappreciated women writers of the nineteenth century. Contemporary critics derided her plots as emotional and slow and found her dialogue conventional. While her stories are full of old-fashioned sentiments and moralizing, she occasionally wrote vivid, realistic descriptive passages that provide flashes of brilliance in some of her works. For the most part grave in tone, her writing focuses on the emotions of characters rather than on their appearance or actions--a tendency that is typical of much of the writing by nineteenth-century women.

Chesebro's primary subject was women. Employing the formula that characterizes most nineteenth-century women's fiction, she created domestic, sentimental plots that lead to moral lessons. Her strong-minded, strong-willed heroines are righteous, long-suffering, and compassionate martyrs who persevere to virtuously remedy the ills of their worlds--caused chiefly by merciless, rigid men. The women's uncomplaining self-sacrifices and unadorned goodness lead eventually to...