My Wife

Boston: William Crosby and H.P. Nichols, 1846 First edition. . Publisher's brown cloth titled in gilt on spine. Pale yellow endpapers. Some foxing. Octavo. A very good, tight copy. In Woman's Fiction, Nina Baym writes, "My Wife (1846) contrasts a terrible marriage contracted by husband and wife on the basis of money and beauty, with an idyllic one based on mutual respect and shared values…[T]his one resembles John Ruskin's famous walled garden in its division of roles. The exemplary husband writes to a friend that 'when I am absent during the day, and perplexed with the multitudinous cares of an extensive mercantile concern, my home rises before my mind's eye…The sweet, consoling thought, that I have such a haven of peace and love soothes and hushes my perturbed spirit,'" (p. 80). Louisa Caroline Tuthill Huggins (1799 – 1879) was the writer or editor of more than thirty books, including The History of Architecture from the Earliest Times (1848), the first history of architecture to be published in the United States. She also edited two collections of John Ruskin's writings and many books for children and women "on such topics as manners, housekeeping, spiritual improvement, nutrition, exercise, and childcare." In books like The Young Lady's Home (1839), which she wrote as a guidebook for girls completing school, "she promoted a broad curriculum for women's education to include disciplines such as architecture, history, literature, natural science, and classical languages" (ANB). Her other novels include her James Somers: The Pilgrim's Son (1827), her first novel; The Belle, the Blue, and the Bigot, or, Three Fields of Woman's Influence (1844); and Reality, or The Millionaires Daughter (1856).