Around 1850, a steady stream of pilgrims could be seen visiting a grave at New York’s Trinity Church inscribed with the name Charlotte Temple. These mourners were paying their respects to the fictional heroine of Susanna Rowson’s popular 1791 melodramatic novel, Charlotte, a Tale of Truth. In the novel, the titular Charlotte, a naive 16-year-old British girl, is seduced by the villainous rake Lord Montraville, brought to America, and then abandoned as he goes off to marry another woman and fight in the Revolutionary War. She dies penniless in a cold New…
