Maria Susanna Cummins and Rosalía de Castro

Abstract

The present article is a comparative study of The Lamplighter (1854), by the North American author Maria Susanna Cummins, and La hija del mar (1859) by the Galician author Rosalía de Castro, which questions the reception of the so-called sentimental literature. Parallels are established not only between the authors, but also between the protagonists of the novels, and special attention is paid to gender conditions related to social class, professional possibilities for the women of their time and for the way in which the idea of the home is conceptualized in relation to that of the nation.