E.D.E.N. Southworth was reportedly one of the most popular fiction authors of her time.
She wrote between sixty and one hundred or more novels, though it is impossible to count the exact number because of many of her works were initially published in magazines and newspapers, under different titles.
And yet, as is so common, she seems to have been all but forgotten today.
Her life, strewn with sorrows, trials, difficulties, but a steadfast faith in Christ, paved the way for an extremely successful writing career, the products of which, impact us even today.
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth was born on December 26, 1819 in the Georgetown Province of Washington D.C. to Captain Charles Le Compte Nevitte and Susannah (Wailes) Nevitte.
A merchant until his ships were lost in the Cold War between France and America in the early 1800s, Captain Nevitte led a company of soldiers during the War of 1812 and was wounded in the chest, inadvertently causing his death in 1824.
Allegedly, it was on his deathbed that her father, in a dramatic gesture, requested five-year-old Emma be rechristened with two additional names so that her initials would spell Eden. This acronym suited her quite well in her later life, and was inevitably how she signed her literary works.
Emma’s young life was not easy after her father’s passing.
Her mother remarried, but her stepfather was a harsh and unsympathetic man. She was blessed with the opportunity of an education in her stepfather’s school, but her memories of her childhood were of deprivation, loneliness, and suffering.
She was apparently a friendless, shy, sickly, mischievous, and unattractive little girl.
At sixteen, she graduated from her stepfather’s school and became a teacher with the D.C. public school system, and five years later married a New York inventor, Frederick Southworth.
Mr. Southworth moved his family to a primitive little Wisconsin frontier town where Emma gave birth to a son, Richmond, who inherited his mother’s delicate health.
In 1844, only four years into their marriage, Frederick abandoned his pregnant wife and young son to seek fortune in South America.
As one can well imagine, Emma was devastated and heartbroken. She returned to Washington D.C. with ill health, an empty purse, and a broken spirit, likely also laden with shame over her husband’s abscondence.
But baby Charlotte and little Richmond needed her support, and so she began teaching once again.
It was not enough. The family struggled to survive off Emma’s meager wages of $250 a year, and the family was often ill.
Emma began to write fiction to distract herself from her trials.
Then, in 1846, Emma submitted a story to the local bookstore, asking if it could be published.
“The Irish Refugee” was accepted by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, and, although it provided its author with no income, it did give the budding novelist a little publicity.
This resulted in The National Era (which is the same paper where “Uncle Tom’s Cabin first appeared) publishing her first novel, Retribution, three years later.
Ten years after her first publication, Robert Bonner of The New York Ledger recognized Emma’s capacity to write engaging and compelling stories, and signed her to a contract which provided her with a lucrative income in exchange for exclusive rights to serialize her novels in The Ledger.
Readers kept coming back week after week, and Emma’s literary career was made. For decades, Emma wrote steadily for several hours a day, five days a week.
Emma’s works have a definite theme, exhibited in the titles of many: The Deserted Wife, The Discarded Daughter, The Missing Bride, The Fatal Marriage, Allworth Abbey, The Changed Brides, Cruel as the Grave, Ishmael; or, In the Depths, The Bride’s Ordeal, A Deed Without a Name, A Leap in the Dark: A Novel, The Unloved Wife, Only a Girl’s Heart.
A recurring theme is often betrayal, in which an innocent female protagonist is grievously wronged by a selfish, arrogant male antagonist. In the end, however, the wrong-doer finds retribution, and the hero or heroine prevails against everything that should have defeated her. Her protagonists are perhaps a bit melodramatic and unrealistic, yet are captivating and lovable.
This theme resonated with the female readers of the nineteenth century, and is most likely the reason she remained so popular up to, and following her death in 1899.
She was so well-loved that the house she lived in the last thirty-some years of her life became a tourist destination for nearly fifty years after her passing, before it was torn down in 1942.
E.D.E.N. Southworth’s own life story and the ones she authored serve to exemplify God’s ability and desire to turn the ugly things of this life into something beautiful and glorious.
Mrs. Southworth’s religious views are not explicitly expressed in those of her works which I have read, yet, that theme is certainly confirmed.
It is an encouraging and steadying reminder that God is indeed in control of our lives, and superintends them for good, which I believe she meant to communicate in the title of her most popular book, The Hidden Hand.
Purchase some of her novels today to enjoy a 19th century Christian author who has been all but forgotten today.
And please read our review of one of Southworth’s most popular works, Ishmael.