"That child," said my aunt Mercy, looking at me with indigo-colored eyes, "is possessed."

Have you heard of Elizabeth Stoddard? I hadn't either. Not until I stumbled across this book while looking for Steinbeck. In the introduction, it explains a bit why this author fell into obscurity although durin

I was looking for an untypical nineteenth century novel and The Morgesons satisfied me to a great degree. Especially the first half of the book, where a lot more action was happening, characters were quite unconventional and conversations witty. After that it gets a bit dull. As some reviewers menti

Upon learning that Stoddard was a contemporary of Hawthorne and Melville, I wondered, "Have I ever read a novel by an American woman of the nineteenth century?" I've read scores of novels by British women of the time, but, aside from Kate Chopin and Harriet Beecher Stowe, where are the works of thei

The Morgesons starts out great. Stoddard's writing blew me away and seemed to be right on the cusp of a Modernist voice. This enthusiasm lasted for around half of the book, though, and started to become flat after Cassandra returns home from Charles and Alice's house. The last half of the book is ex