Life and Sufferings.
[Hanson], Emma Cole. The Life and Sufferings of Miss Emma Cole, Being a Faithful Narrative of Her Life. Boston: M. Aurealius, 1844.
16to.; occasional b&w illustrations; spine worn; marbled half-leather; title in gilt on spine; edges bumped; worn.
Second edition. Originally printed in 1844 as a pamphlet, this edition of Hanson’s 36-page story is rebound in the back of G.P.R. James’ novel Corse de Leon: or, The Brigand. A Romance.
The Life and Suffering tells Hanson’s autobiographical story of a servant girl who escapes her duties in Maine, falls in with pirates while dressed as a man, and manages to eventually return to society, marry, and live a long and happy life.
Hanson begins her story with a short musing on autobiographies, writing, “…although in many cases it may afford us but little satisfaction in taking a retrospective glance of our past life, …with myself it is a source of much real pleasure to turn over the pages in the volume of events of my chequered life, treasured in my memory, and to thank the great Author of my being, who has carried me safely through so many trying scenes” (1). After telling her story, she states that her life can serve as an example for “the youth of both sexes…in which they may see, that however well vice and wrong-doing may prosper for a time, in the end it brings its own woe; and that virtue alone can guard and render them happy in this world…” (36)
Little is known about Hanson’s life beyond what she writes here, along with the brief biographical note at the end of the book explaining, “Mrs. Emma Hanson died at the age of fifty-nine years and seven months, at her residence in Boston” (36).
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