Emma Corbett, Or the Miseries of Civil War

Set both in England and in America, Emma Corbett is the moving story of a family torn apart by the American revolutionary war. Edward Corbett and Henry Hammond are brought up together and go on to marry each other’s sisters, but fight on opposite sides in the war. Emma Corbett, Edward’s sister, follows Henry to Pennsylvania. Disguised as a man, she fights for the British before finding Henry and saving his life, but the war and its aftermath have tragic consequences for all four young people. This powerful epistolary novel was a transatlantic best-seller, in part because both sides of the conflict are fully represented―as are the miseries and terrible costs of war.

Appendices include contemporary reviews as well as contemporary writings on heroism, sensibility, and women and war. A series of personal letters between Pratt (writing as Courtney Melmoth) and Benjamin Franklin, for whom he worked in France, are also included.

Eve Tavor Bannet is George Lynn Cross Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.