The Linwoods, Vol. 2
First sentence
Some two or three years before our revolutionary war, just at the close of day, two girls were seen entering Broadway through a wicket garden-gate, in the rear of a stately mansion which fronted on Broad-street, that being then the court-end of the city-the residence of unquestioned aristocracy- (sic transit gloria mundi!) whence royal favour and European fashions were diffused through the province of New-York...
Description
A novel of two families wrestling with questions of honor, class, loyalty, democracy, and independence during the American Revolution. In The Linwoods, Catharine Maria Sedgwick illuminates the American character and explores issues of civic virtue and national identity in the early republic, through the lives of two families: the Linwoods, dutiful loyalists, and the Lees, passionate revolutionaries. At the novel's heart is Isabella Linwood, a bright and independent young woman who will transform from a proud Tory to ardent Rebel, challenging not only British rule but its accepted social, economic, and political institutions, including the aristocracy, slavery, and patriarchal authority.