Helen Hunt Jackson: A Literary Life (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Helen Hunt Jackson has long been stored in America's literary attic. . . . Kate Phillips seeks to unpack Jackson, take her downstairs to the library living room and let her bask in bright sunshine."--Salt Lake City Tribune -- Review

"The best parts ... come when Phillips approached her subject as a fellow novelist ... [shaping] the book thematically and chronologically..." -- San Francisco Chronicle, April 19, 2003

"a smart biography of a tireless literary worker and intellectual" -- New York Times Book Review, September 21, 2003

Phillips has produced what demands to be regarded as the definitive biography of Jackson. -- Los Angeles Times Book Review, March 30, 2003

Product Description

Novelist, travel writer, and essayist Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) was one of the most successful authors and most passionate intellects of her day. Ralph Waldo Emerson also regarded her as one of America's greatest poets. Today Jackson is best remembered for Ramona, a romantic novel set in the rural Southern Californian Indian and Californio communities of her day. Ramona, continuously in print for over a century, has become a cultural icon, but Jackson's prolific career left us with much more, notably her achievements as a prose writer and her work as an early activist on behalf of Native Americans. This long-overdue biography of Jackson's remarkable life and times reintroduces a distinguished figure in American letters and restores Helen Hunt Jackson to her rightful place in history.

Discussing much new material, Kate Phillips makes extensive use of Jackson's unpublished private correspondence. She takes us from Jackson's early years in rural New England to her later pioneer days in Colorado and to her adventerous travels in Europe and Southern California. The book also gives the first in-depth discussions of Jackson's writing in every genre, her beliefs about race and religion, and the significance of her chronic illnesses. Phillips also discusses Jackson's intimate relationships--with her two husbands, her mentor Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the famed actress Charlotte Cushman, and the poet Emily Dickinson. Phillips concludes with a re-evaluation of Ramona, discussing the novel as the earliest example of the California dystopian tradition in its portrayal of a state on the road to self-destruction, a tradition carried further by writers like Nathanael West and Joan Didion.

In this gripping biography, Phillips offers fascinating glimpses of how social context both shaped and inspired Jackson's thinking, highlighting the inextricable presence of gender, race, and class in American literary history and culture and opening a new window onto the nineteenth century.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 408 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (April 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520218043
• ISBN-13: 978-0520218048
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #465,418 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of those authors..., May 15, 2005

By	P. Charalambous (Cyprus) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

...you just can't get over,once you've read her work you want to know everything there is to know about her!