Patricia Caldwell – författare

One of the earliest documentary novels, Fall River recounts the famous murder of a mill girl and the subsequent trial of a popular minister of the period. Compellingly written, it is not only a record of a sensational story of its times, but also a revealing embodiment of the social and cultural climate of early nineteenth century industrial America. The book is also an important landmark in the history of religion in American popular culture, with detailed descriptions of religious camp meetings in New England. Williams was urged by her readers to compose her account of these events, in order to correct what she called the "indecent manner" in which they had hitherto been reported. (David Kasserman's recent widely acclaimed sociological study Fall River Outrage is based on the events Williams describes.) This unprecedented new series reintroduces women's writings of cultural and literary interest, from the Medieval period through the early nineteenth century, often for the first time since their original publication. Derived from the Brown University Women Writers Project, the series unearths a wide range of neglected gems, dispelling the myth that women wrote little of real value before the Victorian period. Each volume includes an introduction putting the work in its historical and literary context and helpful explanatory notes.

Catharine Williams (1787-1872) lived most of her life in Rhode Island, where she supported herself and her daughter by a productive literary career. Her most compelling work, Fall River, last published in 1833, recreates a notorious incident in the ill-fated town of Fall River, Massachusetts: the trial of a Methodist minister for the murder of a pregnant mill worker whom it was suspected he had seduced. Williams''s investigative report offers a vivid contemporary view of the lives of poor "factory girls" and of clerical corruption in the industrial towns of early New England. While based in fact, the book raises themes of sexual and religious hypocrisy and exploitation that may be compared with those of novels like The Coquette, Uncle Tom''s Cabin, and The Scarlet Letter. At the same time, the author''s mixture of journalism, biography, fiction, and exhortation makes this "authentic narrative" an unusual challenge to traditional notions of literary form and yields fresh insights into the nature of early American women''s writing.