THE GRIMKE SISTERS FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

It has been over eighty years since a biography has been published of Sarah and Angeline Grimke, two daughters of a prominent Charleston family that fled the South in the 1820's because of slavery. With extensive research, primarily diaries, the author carries the sisters from their life as Philadelphia Quakers to their short but important role as abolitionist leaders, to their utopian colony, to their death. The body of the book, however, dwells extensively on the development of their opposition to slavery and their abolitionist activities. The author imports more direction to their lives in terms of the anti-slavery movement than they actually possessed; they became activists out of accident rather than intent, as the author herself points out and then proceeds to ignore. Although it is a competent biography, there is little that will interest the general reader.