One of the few things definitely known about Amelia Stratton Comfield, the author of _Alida_, is what she looked like in 1852, when her portrait was painted by David Rogers. A smaller form of the painting is included with the HTML version of this file. At time of preparation (mid-2010), the original was online at the Smithsonian collection:
Amelia Stratton Comfield was probably related to Southern writer and educator Catherine Stratton Ladd (1808-1899), who wrote under a number of pseudonyms--including "Alida".
Alida: Chronology
The chronology is internally consistent: that is, the pa.s.sage of time based on descriptions of seasons agrees with datable external events, even in the part of the story that draws heavily on _Alonzo and Melissa_. The war of 1812 began in mid-1812 and ended in December 1814; evidently the news reached New York before it reached New Orleans.
1811 and earlier Death of Alida"s mother Alida goes to seminary in New York: "The season was now far advanced in autumn"
1812 Alida returns home: "The spring was advancing"
[June 1812: War declared]
Father"s birthday; Alida is sixteen From Alonzo and Melissa: "It was summer, and towards evening when he arrived."
"It was the beginning of autumn"
"... and sung a requiem to departed summer"
"... the day had been uncommonly sultry for the autumnal season"
"Winter came on; it rapidly pa.s.sed away."
1813 "Spring advanced, and the marriage day was appointed."
"Nature was adorned with the bridal ornaments of spring"
"Fleecy summer clouds ..."
Theodore has not yet enlisted "... weary summer had lapsed into the fallow arms of autumn"
After father"s remarriage: "the cool breezes of autumn had changed to the hoa.r.s.e murmuring gales of winter"
1814 "the mild and salubrious breezes of spring had succeeded to the bl.u.s.tering gales of winter"
Father"s birthday [August 1814: burning of Washington]
[December 1814: Treaty of Ghent]
[December 1814-January 1815: Hartford Convention]
"... taken up their residence in the city for the winter"
1815 [January 1815: battle of New Orleans]
War is over; celebration of peace "winter"s snow was pa.s.sing from the face of nature"
"verdant scenery of spring"
"showers of April had cleared the atmosphere"
Father"s birthday Alida leaves for tour of New York state: "The summer was past its meridian"
"The number of travellers this summer were unusually great"
1816 After death of Alida"s father: "at the commencement of the ensuing spring"
Theodore returns
Alida: Sources
Abbreviated t.i.tles of the most frequently cited works are given here in [brackets]. Unless otherwise noted, the quoted edition was picked simply because it was the most readily available; it may or may not have been the edition used by the author. All [_sic_] notations were added by the transcriber; all brackets in _Alonzo and Melissa_ are in the original.
Sources that are used only once are identified as they occur in the text.
_Non-Fiction_
Karl Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: _Travels through North America, during the years 1825 and 1826_. Translation published 1828. [Abbreviated "Travels"]
Chapters XXIV-XXVII inclusive, except the poetry, are taken from this book. See beginning of chapter XXIV for more information.
John Warner Barber: _Interesting Events in the History of the United States ..._ (exact t.i.tle varies). First edition 1827; later editions include 1828 and 1834, with reprints of each. Details of wording point to the 1828 edition as the source.
The segments dealing with the war of 1812 are quoted extensively: "Second War with Great Britain"; the battles of Queenstown, Lake Erie, Niagara and Lake Champlain; Death of Tec.u.mseh; the Hartford Convention; "Piracies in the West Indies".
Nathaniel Dwight: _Sketches of the lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence_. First Edition 1830; quotations from 1840 edition (reprint of 1830). [Abbreviated "Lives of Signers"]
Used primarily for character descriptions. Most are applied to male characters in the novel, but one pa.s.sage is inserted into a description of Dolly Madison. With one exception, all selections are taken from representatives of Northern states.
Mrs. James Madison. Here quoted from _The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge_; the article was printed in other publications.
Some parts of this article refer to the period when James Madison was Secretary of State under Jefferson.
Much of the article quotes from the chapter on Dolly Madison in a longer work: American Academy of the Fine Arts (James Herring and James Barton Longacre), _The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans_ (no later than 1834).
_A sketch of the life and public services of William H. Harrison, commander in chief of the North-western army during the War of 1812, &c._ Many editions from 1835 and later.
Charles Phillips: Speech at Dinas Island on George Washington.
Widely reprinted; the version published in the author"s Collected Speeches is different from earlier published versions quoted here.
Lindley Murray: _The Power of Religion on the Mind_. First edition 1836; many later editions and reprints. Quotations from 1863 (the only edition available to me).
Not a religious work but a collection of short biographies with character description. Except for the article on Job, attributions are too short to be certain; _Alida_ may have found similar phrases in a different source.
Francis Smith Eastman: _A history of the state of New York ..._ First edition 1828; later edition (with reprints) 1831. Details of wording identify the 1831 edition (or a later one) as the source.
_Fiction_
Daniel Jackson/Isaac Mitch.e.l.l: _Alonzo and Melissa_. For details, see Project Gutenberg e-text 28112. Written 1804 by Mitch.e.l.l; first book publication (pirated by Jackson) 1811, with many reprints.
Wording in _Alida_ does not consistently correspond to any of the editions used for the _Alonzo and Melissa_ e-text. Quotations are generally from 1811 except where a different edition matches the wording more closely. [Abbreviated "A&M"]
By word count, _Alida_"s favorite source: chapters VII-XII inclusive, much of the adjoining chapters VI and XIII, most of x.x.xIII-x.x.xIV (the final two chapters), and many other pa.s.sages of varying length. See beginning of chapter VI for more information.
Regina Maria Roche: _The Children of the Abbey_. First published 1796, reprinted throughout the following century. Quotations from 1877.
Mrs. (Mary Martha) Sherwood: _The Broken Hyacinth_; _The Lady of the Manor_.
_Alida_ may contain other quotations from this author; most phrases are too short to be unambiguous. Mrs. Sherwood"s fiction has a strong religious element, and she seems the kind of author Amelia Comfield would have liked.
Robert Folkestone Williams: _Mephistophiles in England, or the Confessions of a Prime Minister_. 1835.
_Alida_ only quotes one pa.s.sage from this two-volume novel. The episode may have been reprinted in some other text, or the novel itself may have lifted it from an earlier source.
Amelia Stratton Comfield: _Alida_.
When all else fails, the book quotes itself. One pa.s.sage appears three times.
_Periodicals and Short Fiction_
_The New-York Weekly Magazine, Or, Miscellaneous Repository_: Volume II, 1797. Reprinted as a single bound volume containing 52 8-page issues (July 1796-June 1797). [Abbreviated "NY Weekly"]
Only two volumes of this periodical, and a few issues of the third, were published; only volume II was available to me. At least 30 separate pieces are quoted in _Alida_, so it is likely that some unidentified sources are in volumes I or III.
Most essays were printed with minimal attribution, or none at all; some can also be found in other sources. "The Nettle and the Rose"
also appears in _The Blossoms of Morality_ (1796) and in _New-York Magazine_, N.S. II (1797). "On Education" is taken from the writings of Vicesimus Knox; "Detraction" is by Nathaniel Cotton.
"Amelia, or the Faithless Briton". Here quoted from _The New-York Magazine, or, Literary Repository_: Vol. VI (1795); the story also appears in _The Lady"s Weekly Miscellany_ (1810).
"The Merchant"s Daughter". Here quoted from _The American Monthly Magazine_, Vol. 3, 1834.