Other Fiction Sedgwick, Anne Douglas: The Confounding of Camelia. v1. 15 Jul 2014

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Anne Douglas Sedgwick (March 28, 1873 - July 19, 1935) was an American-born British writer. The daughter of a businessman, she was born in Englewood, New Jersey but at age nine her family moved to London. Although she made return visits to the United States, she lived in England for the remainder of her life. In 1908, she married the British essayist and journalist, Basil de Sélincourt. During World War I she and her husband were volunteer workers in hospitals and orphanages in France. Her novels explored the contrast in values between Americans and Europeans. Her bestselling novel Tante was made into a 1918 film, The Impossible Woman and The Little French Girl into a 1925 film of the same name. In 1931, she was elected to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters. Four of her books were on the list of bestselling novels in the United States for 1912, 1924, 1927, and 1929 as determined by the New York Times. Anne Douglas Sedgwick died in Hampstead, England in 1935. The following year her husband published "Anne Douglas Sedgwick: A Portrait in Letters."

Excerpt
WHEN Camelia came down into the country after her second London season, descended lightly upon the home of her forefathers, her coming unannounced, and as much a matter of caprice as had been her long absence, a slowly growing opinion, an opinion that had begun to form itself during Camelia’s most irresponsible girlhood, became clearly defined, a judgment fixed and apparently irrevocable. The Patons had always been good, quiet people; absolutely undistinguished, were it not that the superlative quality of their tranquil excellence gave a certain distinction. There were no black sheep in their annals, and a black sheep gives, by contrast, a brilliancy lacking to unaccented bucolic groupings, strikes a note of interest at any rate; but none of the Paton sheep were even gray. They fed in pleasant, plenteous pastures, for it was a wealthy, though not noticeably wealthy family, and perhaps a rather sheep-like dulness, an unimaginative contentment not conducive to adventurous strayings, accounted for the spotless fleeces.

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