Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867) was arguably the most highly regarded American woman writer of the first half of the nineteenth century. Though deeply invested in the creation of a distinctively national literature, she was also remarkably cosmopolitan in her tastes and interests as testified by her 1841 travelogue Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home. This article examines the ways in which Sedgwick, while taking her readers on a traditional guided tour of celebrated cities, also tried to make them aware of the effects of foreign occupation and despotism on contemporary Italy.
