Christine: Or Woman's Trials and Triumphs

by Laura Curtis Bullard, Denise M. Kohn (Editor)

When Laura Curtis Bullard wrote the novel Christine in 1856, she created one of antebellum America’s most radical a woman’s rights leader. Addressing the major social, political, and cultural issues surrounding women from within an unusually overt feminist framework for its time, Christine openly challenges a social and legal system that denies women full and equal rights.

 

Christine defies her family, rejects marriage, and leaves a job as a teacher to embark on her career, rewriting the script for a successful nineteenth-century heroine. Along the way, she recreates domesticity on her own terms, helping other young women gain economic independence so that they, too, have the autonomy to make their own choices in love and life. One of the triumphs of the novel is the author’s ability to create a sympathetic heroine and a fast-paced plot that intertwines vivid scenes of suicide, destitution, and an insane asylum with theoretical and political discussions—so skillfully that the novel successfully appealed to otherwise hesitant middle-class readers.

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[cait · Rating 4 out of 5]

this diva

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the novel's text to be similar to the way Jane Austen novels are written. However, the plot seemed to go too fast, and Bullard drags in dialogue. I found it witty (though I don't think she meant it to be), and effective in getting her point across. Definitely not what I would think of "suffrage literature", but then again, this is my first exposure to a fiction novel about women's suffrage.

[Ella Wilford · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent work of feminist literature with amazing characters and messages. The main love story was a rollercoaster, but it was worth it. I also loved Christine’s role as a Christ figure, and how the love story tied into that.

But Dr. Russell is just the worst (he’s not Christine’s love interest lol).

[emily zwegat · Rating 1 out of 5]

disappointment *clap clap clapclapclap*

[Angellee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5-ish*

[Claire Beaumont · Rating 2 out of 5]

Early American lit is just not my jam (I can't believe that a teenage girl killed herself because her fiance cheated on her and Christine still married him????)

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather disappointing ending