“Ethel’s Love-Life” and Other Writings

Ethel’s Love-Life is an 1859 novel by Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat (1823-1908), notable as one of the earliest American novels to treat romantic love between women with open warmth. Told as a young woman’s confiding letters, the book has drawn modern attention from scholars of nineteenth-century female intimacy and the history of sexuality. Sweat was a Maine writer and traveller; this is her one surviving work of fiction. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.