The Firefly Letters (13 page)

I thank God for winter sun, fireflies, and friendship.

I am grateful that women no longer have to choose between writing and marriage, thanks to the efforts of equal-rights advocates such as Fredrika Bremer, who encouraged girls to change the world by thinking independently.

As always, I am deeply grateful to my husband, Curtis, my son, Victor, and my daughter, Nicole.

Special thanks to Reka Simonsen for editing so gracefully and so powerfully, and to Robin Tordini, Tim Jones, Deirdre Hare Jacobson, and everyone else at Henry Holt and Company.

I am grateful to Dan and Peggy Dunklee of the Clovis Book Barn, and William Secrest at the Fresno Library for help with rare-book searches.

For encouragement and friendship,
mil gracias
to Julie Molina and Celina Bowen.

Bremer, Fredrika.
New Sketches of Every-Day Life
. Translated by Mary Howitt. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850.

_____.
The Homes of the New World: Impressions of America
. Translated by Mary Howitt. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1858.

_____.
Life in the Old World
. Translated by Mary Howitt. New York: T. B. Peterson & Brothers, 1860.

_____.
Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works of Fredrika Bremer
. Edited by Charlotte Bremer. Translated by Frederick Milow and Emily Nonnen. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1868.

_____.
Cartas desde Cuba.
Traducción por Matilde Goulard de Westberg. Havana: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1981.

Stendahl, Brita K.
The Education of a Self-Made Woman: Fredrika Bremer, 1801–1865
. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984.