Reviews
"This collection's richness lies in the unparalleled length of its view. Mary Telfair's letters to her close friend show how the interests and activities of one privileged woman changed and evolved over time, as religion and family responsibilities loomed ever larger."
—Jane Turner Censer, author of The Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood, 1865-1895
Description
This volume gathers nearly half of some 300 letters written by Mary Telfair of Savannah to her best friend, Mary Few of New York. Telfair was born in 1790 to a wealthy, prominent, slaveholding Savannah family. Few, born in 1790 into equally affluent circumstances, moved with her family from Savannah to New York in 1799. Self-exiled because of their strong antislavery views, the Fews never returned to Georgia, yet they remained close to the Telfairs.
The close friendship between Telfair and Few ended only with their deaths in the 1870s. Regular travelers, they met on many occasions. Chiefly, however, they kept in touch through frequent correspondence (Few’s letters to Telfair remain undiscovered, and may not have not survived). Wherever Telfair happened to be—in Savannah, the northern states, or Europe—she wrote to her friend at least two or three times a month.
Telfair’s letters offer unique insights into the daily life of her…
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