by Lucy Brewer
A rare, curious, and charming piece of early Americana, this is the personal narrative of a Massachusetts maiden, Lucy Brewer, relating her amazing and incredible adventures in and about Boston and New York of the early 1800's. Driven from home by a sense of shame after being led astray, she finds refuge and a new way of life in a select Back Bay brothel. Later, disguised as a man, she enlists in the Marine Corps and serves aboard the U.S.S. Constitution for three years without discovery. Afterwards she continues her masquerade and travels about early America, eventually revisiting her former haunts, to meet again, unrecognized the madam of the house and deliver to the reader a lecture on the evils of her earlier way of life. In the literature of early nineteenth-century America, Lucy Brewer's The Female Marine stands as a most intriguing literary puzzle--a puzzle concerning both its authorship and veracity. Yet this little book is something more than a puzzle. It defies the usual definitions of "novel", cannot be viewed simply as a "pamphlet," nor qualifies fully as a "short story." It is undeniably romantic, leans sharply towards autobiography, and is solidly adventurous. Much of its merit lies in the spirit in which it appears to have been written and told; her stint in a Boston whorehouse, her combat experiences aboard the U.S.S Constitution, her wanderings in the disguise of a man, and her pranks and masquerades make an entertaining and fascinating tale. First published about 1815.
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