Preface : Miss Bryant and Miss Drake Were Married to Each Other
Book 1 : Childhood
1. A Child of Melancholy - 1777
2. Infantile Days - 1784
Book 2 : Youth
3. O the Example! - 1787
4. Mistress of a School - 1797
5. So Many Friends - 1799
6. Discontent and Indifferent - 1800
7. Never to Marry - 1800
Book 3 : Love
8. Charity and Mercy - 1805
9. Charity and Lydia - 1806
10. Charity and Sylvia - February 1807
Book 4 : Marriage
11. The Tie That Binds - July 1807
12. Their Own Dwelling - 1809
13. Wild Affections - 1811
14. Miss Bryant Was The Man - 1820
Book 5 : Community
15. Dear Aunts - 1823
16. Stand Fast in One Spirit - 1828
17. Diligent in Business - 1835
Book 6: Senescence
18. The Cure of Her I Love - 1839
19. Sylvia Drake | W - 1851
Afterword : A Tale That is Told
Rachel Hope Cleves is Associate Professor of History, University of Victoria
"Rachel Hope Cleves offers a lyrical portrait of a same-sex
marriage in this new book. Here completely assembled for the first
time is the compelling story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake and
their forty-four-year (1807-51) domestic, romantic, and sexual
union.... Through nineteen short, crisply composed chapters,
readers are drawn into the intimate world of Charity and Sylvia....
Scholars of the history of sexuality and the general reading public
alike -
but especially those engaged in same-sex marriages in the
twenty-first century - will appreciate the depth of research and
the beautiful prose of this book. Charity and Sylvia would be
proud." --Journal
of the History of Sexuality
"...Rachel Hope Cleves's Charity and Sylvia is an important
contribution to the field. Finally, a historian has documented a
long-term same-sex relationship in the early republic.... Charity
and Sylvia is a compelling story that fills a long-standing void in
the history of sexuality." --Journal of American History
"The book is the first to delve deep into the history of an early
American same-sex marriage. Cleves sees Drake and Bryant not as an
aberration, but as part of a larger history of same-sex
partnerships that has yet to be written - one that now exists
mainly as clues dropped in family histories and stories told in the
archives of local historical societies." --Rebecca Onion, Boston
Globe
"The moving true story of a same-sex couple who found an honored
place in early 19th-century Vermont... Rachel Hope Cleves' new
book, Charity and Sylvia: A Same Sex Marriage in Early America, is
a slim, tender tribute to this marriage-in-all-but-law... Academic
histories capable of bringing tears to a reader's eyes are rare,
but Charity and Sylvia is one of them." --Salon
"In a year when same-sex marriages are being recognized,
unrecognized and rerecognized in courtrooms around the country,
historian Rachel Hope Cleves flies us back in time two centuries to
a remarkable couple... Drawing on documents and letters, and
occasionally reading between the lines and interpreting silences,
Cleves meticulously reconstructs their lives together in Charity
and Sylvia. She explores fascinating and difficult questions, such
as how
the two women squared their relationship with their religious
community and whether this was a sexual union." --Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel
"In telling [the story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake], Cleves
has written more than a work of recovery of a lesbian past. She
offers an intriguing inquiry into the language of letters and
poetry. Her close reading uncovers hidden meanings to reveal the
private coded words of the same-sex female lovers." --Journal of
Interdisciplinary History
"Charity and Sylvia is undeniably smart - a devastatingly handsome
contribution to our understanding of the history of gender and
sexuality in the United States and the history of the early
republic and antebellum period generally." --The New England
Quarterly
"In this beautifully written and utterly absorbing love story,
Cleves (The Reign of Terror in America) explores the lives of
Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, two ordinary middle-class women
who serve as a window on historical constructs of marriage, gender,
and sexuality in late 18th-century and early 19th-century
America... Meticulously researched and brilliantly argued, Cleves
has crafted an important work of history that resonates with one
of
today's most public debates." --Publishers Weekly (starred
review)
"[A] remarkable story of which [Cleves] tells with equal parts
rigor and sensitivity... Charity & Sylvia is an absorbing and
perspective-shifting read in its entirety, chronicling the lives of
these two pioneering women, the multitude of challenges, personal
and social, they overcame to be together, and the depth and
richness of their lifelong love." --Brainpickings
"Starting with the birth of the woman on whom author Rachel Hope
Cleves focuses most, this book opens with a slice of life during
the Revolutionary War. We then move back and forth in narrative,
but Cleves never lets us forget the time and space that her
subjects inhabited, the social mores, the historical aspects, nor
the seemingly-inconsistent attitudes toward romance and sex that
our forebears held and that which we've been led to believe they
had. I found
that deeply fascinating and highly entertaining. I think that if
you're a fan of history (LGBT or otherwise), this is something
you'll relish. With chaste retelling and its abundant details,
Charity &
Sylvia is your grandmother's book - and yours, too."
--Washington Blade
"With Charity and Sylvia Cleves has stitched together a coherent,
captivating account, one filled with vibrant details, and she
offers a provocative conclusion: however astonishing their story,
it might not be that uncommon." --The Gay & Lesbian Review
"An extraordinary book" -- The Historian
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |